Daily News Brief for Tuesday, December 19th, 2023
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This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Tuesday, December 19th, 2023.
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Navy vet defends beheading Iowa capitol's satanic Baphomet statue: 'Christian civil disobedience'
A Mississippi Navy reserve pilot instructor who admitted to beheading a statue of the satanic half-man, half-goat Baphomet inside the Iowa State Capitol told Fox News he was simply engaging in "Christian civil disobedience."
Michael Cassidy said he decided "spur of the moment" to travel north to Des Moines and take action against the statue, which had been permitted to be erected not far from the rotunda's Nativity display for Christmas.
He told "Jesse Watters Primetime" he wrecked the statue then went straight to Capitol security to tell them what he did.
"I wasn't running away or anything like that. I told them what I did," he said, thanking law enforcement for their professionalism following the incident.
He was cited for criminal mischief in the fourth degree and released.
"I saw that this was going on, I was surprised that the legislature allowed it up and that they didn't do anything to take it down," Cassidy added.
He said he wasn't sure what to expect when he came upon the Capitol, citing a prior incident in Springfield, Ill., where groups were chanting after a 2021 erection of a satanic statue in the Illinois State House.
In a Tuesday statement, Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds said she found the statue "absolutely objectionable," but that the best response to objectionable speech is more speech and prayer.
After he was charged, several conservative figures rallied to Cassidy's defense, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and conservative commentator Matt Walsh.
DeSantis promised to "chip in" for Cassidy's legal fees, writing on X, formerly Twitter, that "Satan has no place in our society and should not be recognized as a ‘religion’ by the federal government." Walsh similarly tweeted he will contribute to Cassidy's defense.
Host Jesse Watters noted the contrast between reaction to Cassidy's act and the dozens of protests in recent years that featured left-wing activists tearing down statues of Confederate officers, former U.S. presidents and historical figures like Christopher Columbus.
He pointed to then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi's, D-Calif., dismissal of the crowd in her home neighborhood of Little Italy, Baltimore, who leveled the Columbus statue and tossed it in the Patapsco River.
"People will do what they do," Pelosi said at a July 2020 press conference.
The city of Richmond, Va., in recent years removed an entire street's worth of statuary dedicated to Confederate Gens. A. P. Hill, "Stonewall" Jackson and J. E. B. Stuart, all of which lined the former Confederate capital's "Monument Avenue" for decades.
Left-wing protesters notably failed to topple the statue of Andrew Jackson, the first Democratic president, near the White House in 2020 after being rebuffed by law enforcement.
In that respect, Watters said there appears to be a dichotomy between what statuary destruction causes mainstream or left-wing outrage.
Cassidy's attorney, Davis Younts, said his client's case is a question of good versus evil, and that he and those who have come to his defense will continue to stand by him to make sure he gets equal protection under law.
He also said there has not yet been a First Amendment suit in case law that has found Satanism to be considered a religion under the Constitution, and that anti-blasphemy laws still exist in the United States.
Church of England Blesses Same-Sex Couples For the First Time
Church of England priests offered officially sanctioned blessings of same-sex partnerships for the first time on Sunday, though a ban on church weddings for gay couples remains in place amid deep divisions within global Anglicanism over marriage and sexuality.
In one of the first ceremonies, the Rev. Catherine Bond and the Rev. Jane Pearce had their union blessed at St John the Baptist church, in Felixstowe, eastern England, where both are associate priests.
The couple knelt in front of Canon Andrew Dotchin, who held their heads as he gave “thanks for Catherine and Jane, to the love and friendship they share, and their commitment to one another as they come before you on this day.”
The church´s national assembly voted in February to allow clergy to bless the unions of same-sex couples who have had civil weddings or partnerships. The words used for the blessings, known as prayers of love and faith, were approved by the church´s House of Bishops on Tuesday and used for the first time on Sunday.
The compromise was struck following five years of discussions about the church´s position on sexuality. Church leaders offered an apology for the church´s failure to welcome LGBTQ people, but also endorsed the doctrine that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Clergy won´t be required to perform same-sex blessings if they disagree with them.
The blessings can be used in regular church services. The church´s governing body has also drawn up a plan for separate “services of prayer and dedication” for same-sex couples that would resemble weddings, but it has not yet been formally approved.
Public opinion surveys consistently show that a majority of people in England support same-sex marriage, which has been legal since 2013. The church didn´t alter its teaching on marriage when the law changed.
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has said he won´t personally bless any same-sex couples because it´s his job to unify the world’s 85 million Anglicans. Welby is the spiritual leader of both the Church of England and the global Anglican Communion of which it is a member.
Several Anglican bishops from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific said after the February decision that they no longer recognize Welby as their leader.
Poll: 54% of Democrat Voters Want to Replace Joe Biden as 2024 Nominee
Democrat party voters are unhappy President Joe Biden, 81, is the presumptive Democrat nominee to likely challenge former President Donald Trump, Fox News polling revealed Sunday.
The poll highlights the disconnect and discord inflicting the Democrat party after Biden refused to step aside and allow a different Democrat to lead the party.
The survey showed:
54 percent of Democrat primary voters prefer an alternative to Biden.
Just 43 percent of Democrat primary voters want to keep Biden.
The polling showed a slight uptick in negative sentiment against the president:
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