With a group of campaigners for Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz having performed a “Live Nativity” on the grounds of the Michigan State Capitol, a group of Satanists plan a demonstration of their own Saturday.
“Michigan has Ted Cruz supporters to thank for their state’s distinct honor in hosting this event,” the Detroit Chapter of the Satanic Temple announced.
The local chapter of Satan-worshippers say they will put on a “snaketivity,” which includes a display of a snake curled around a cross bearing the words “The Greatest Gift is Knowledge.”
The church held a controversial “snaketivity” at the Capitol last year in response to a Christian nativity scene.
“This year, there’s not only a Nativity, but also a live performance of a Nativity as well,” Jex Blackmore, director of the Detroit Chapter of the Satanic Temple, said in a press release. The content of the performance will not be shared until the event takes place at 8 p.m. EST.
“As this public display of Christian pride could have easily been a private display at any of the innumerable local churches, and as our presence is hardly unknown since last year’s holiday display controversy, it’s difficult to view the live Nativity as anything other than a direct invitation to The Satanic Temple to perform our own ceremony on the statehouse lawn.”
“The overriding message in our holiday display is one of plurality and religious liberty,” Blackmore said. “We have no interest in proselytizing Satanism to the public; however, we refuse to allow one religious perspective to dominate the discourse. For that reason, when there is one dominant religious display on public grounds, we’ll offer our own, and we urge other minority voices to do the same.”
Also getting in on the holiday spirit of religous plurality is the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a parody religion that opposes the idea of intelligent design and whose followers wear colanders on their heads. The church put up a monument of a fake tangle of meatballs and spaghetti, topped with a pair of eyeballs on the Capitol grounds Friday, according to the Lansing State Journal.
