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.
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"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.
"I didn't know what was going to be there, but nobody was there, and it offended me. It touched a nerve," Cassidy said.
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.
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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.
