359 Comments

I was a homeless veteran from 1996 to 2007. It's my experience the GOP nor Christians ever cared about us.

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They care about "the troops" as part of their jingoistic rhetoric to prove their "patriotism". Actual veterans? Those are actual 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦. The only actual people they tend to care about are the ones they see in the mirror.

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It's far cheaper to "honor" the dead than to care for the living.

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They also can’t complain when you piss on their graves.

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The dead, conveniently, also can't speak for themselves anymore.

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So much easier to put words in their mouths to support your position.

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Also why it’s so easy for them to advocate for the unborn.

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Yes it requires nothing, just platitudes.

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I think what they care about is money being spent on weapons systems and jobs programs in some areas of the country. But once you retire, you're a sunk cost who uses socialism to support yourself. Not at all what they like.

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We need look no further than the covid pandemic to see how many christians did not, in fact, love their neighbors. Any of them. They found caring for their neighbors by doing something as simple as wearing a mask to be too big an ask. The GOP's christianity is as phony and performative as their patriotism.

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🎯Yes, what a bunch of selfish, ignorant, bints, they were.

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Five years for this formerly homeless vet. It was quite enough.

Lost my job and home thanks to Bush. Got back on my feet thanks to Obama. Guess we see who truly supports the troops.

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What? Wasn't the yellow ribbon magnetic bumper sticker enough?

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You're supposed to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Nevermind that that is a physical and social impossibility. Just about everybody needs help to get up when they fall even if they often think they did it by themselves.

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A rising tide......

.....only lifts seaworthy boats.

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"“Obscene material” is any material depicting or describing the genitals, sex acts, masturbation, excretory functions or sadomasochistic abuse..."

The bible.

"...lacks serious literary, scientific, political or artistic value."

Again, the bible.

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The first thing I thought of when I read it.

Maybe TST should read all the nasty parts of the Christian book of fables instead of Paradise Lost. Watch the GQP blow a fuse.

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Read it, then cite chapter and verse 𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 they complain about the obscenity.

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Exactly. And if you don't cite book, chapter and verse, put a dust jacket of the Qur'an on for good measure. Watch the shocked look on at least some of their faces when that cover comes off.

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When, inevitably, some of them claim that it's not in the bible, show them. Using THEIR copy.

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"Is that your bible?"

"It's a bible."

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That should be part of it. Leave them no room to escape.

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And have cameras rolling so they can't deny later that they were shocked by the bible.

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I remember what happened when they pulled that switcheroo on Christians in New York. They were ready to burn the Islamic holy book when that cover came off. Some had the decency to be shocked. One gentlemen who had been into it simply got disgusted that he had somehow been tricked and muttered an insincere "Yeah, have a nice day" before stoming off in a huff. He was pissed off, the poor baby.

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I do like the way you think, lol!

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I'm a deviwish wascal. :)

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That's why we love you!

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Now, THAT would be hilarious!

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Ummm ... Ezekiel 23:20, anyone?

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Also Gen 19:4 & 19:31-36

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Sep 4
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You obviously haven't read your book. If you did, you either ignored the horrific parts or reveled in them. Special pleading doesn’t fly here, begone troll!

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A statue of a goat headed man sitting - offensive. A statue of an innocent man being crucified - not offensive. Reading from a 16 century poem that was critical of religion and society - offensive. Reading from a book that gives instructions on how to sell your daughter into sexual slavery - not offensive. See. It is easy to figure out what is offensive and not offensive.

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Protestants generally don't go in for the 'full crucifix' on public display (though they show up in churches). They tend to prefer the simple unadorned cross for their proselytization. The folks in charge here might consider the blood and gore rule's prevention of Catholic displays but not Protestant ones as a benefit. Assuming it wasn't intentional to begin with.

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Do Iowans want The Troubles? Because that's how you get The Troubles.

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The US has had it's share of anti-RCC bigotry in the early 20th century, but for whatever cultural or historical reason we didn't get that sort of full-on sectarian warfare. No political Republic-or-Union equivalent to add fuel to the fire, i guess.

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Too easy.

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𝑊𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑒 𝑟𝑢𝑙𝑒𝑠 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑑 𝑑𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑙𝑦 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑆𝑎𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑠’ 𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑠𝑡?

Yes. Yes they were. The White Christian Nationalists in charge of Iowa do not care who they hurt as long as those they hate are hurt. And that lack of care definitely includes veterans. For all their jingoistic "support the troops" rhetoric, they take their cues from the orange shitgibbon, a man who has denigrated veterans at every chance.

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It goes back pre-Trump, though, to the "fuck you, I got mine" attitude that we were seeing from these same people during the early 2000s, and earlier. So, as appealing as it is to pin it on the Oompah Loompah, the problem has deeper roots.

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I saw a quote of one evangelical pastor lamenting that members of his flock were saying the Jeebus of the bible was "too woke". The feedback of white nationalism on reichwing christianity is producing a cult of rethuglican Jeebus. Pretty soon they are going to have to rewrite their bible.

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Preachers have lost their job for preaching "nice Jesus" instead of "vengeful God".

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Some people need an angry god to lord over everyone. I’ll take a pass, thanks.

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Won't be the first time.

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Again?

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The Bible wasn't a Book for a long time just a assembly of separate scrolls and fragments. A lot of fighting over which were valid at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD and with heavy influence from the Roman Emperor produced the first one and destroyed a lot of other versions along with the people defending them. Book burning is very Christian. Thereafter follows a lot of other versions and translations. There is a reason that actually studying the Bible History produces Atheists.

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I know, it happened to me too.

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𝑊ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑆𝑎𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑠 𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑 “𝑃𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑒 𝐿𝑜𝑠𝑡,” 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑟𝑢𝑙𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒 𝑒𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑙𝑦 𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑝𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑑𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑛𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐶𝑎𝑝𝑖𝑡𝑜𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑏𝑒 𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑎𝑠 𝑜𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑣𝑒—𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑜𝑟 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑢𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒—𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑓 ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑣𝑎𝑔𝑢𝑒𝑙𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑡𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑑𝑒𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑑, 𝑖𝑡’𝑠 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 “𝑃𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑒 𝐿𝑜𝑠𝑡” 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑏𝑒 𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑎𝑠 𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 “𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒” 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑐…

Someone there will definitely claim "Paradise Lost" to be lacking value. They will conveniently forget that most kids will be required to read part of that during their high school career. Banning Milton is not out of the question for these people. Next will be Shakespeare.

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I’m guessing Dante’s Inferno would be more to their liking. The fact that Trump would be welcome to all those circles would be lost on them

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I wonder if we should tell them it was written in Italian and not English...

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THIS IS MURIKA, USE ENGLISH!

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Nei, ikke faen.

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Translated from one dead language to another until it was finally translated into a language that did not then exist.

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Yep. But it is the exact word of God. 🤪 Should we mention the plagiarism of the much older Sumerians Religious texts while they eliminated the excess Gods, all Goddesses and even their God's Wife. Seems like a bit of misogyny crept in along with the Monotheism. Or that the Code of Hammurabi 1728 BC and the Code of Ur-Nammu 2100 BC precedes the 10 Commandments, which they seem to claim as the original laws.

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Doncha love how the so-called "inerrant" word of God can't even get its story straight from Genesis I to Genesis II? They conflict. They can't both be right.

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And after reading Genesis 19, I still don't see how they got the term Sodomite for a gay man. The story isn't about homosexuality. It's about rape.

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Someone else could try to arrange a reading of Milton’s Areopagitica.

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Especially if even one of them has read him, and know how bawdy the Bard was.

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Iowa Christians running scared. That's about all I can think of as I read this post. They push their bible as though it had any serious value as anything other than (poorly written) literature, while purposefully frustrating efforts to present a far more valuable and inspirational work: Milton's Paradise Lost. And in the midst of their thumb-fingered attempt, they wind up with collateral damage to a group that could hardly afford it: homeless military veterans.

I'd ask those in power in Iowa's government to perhaps think a bit harder before they act ... but then, they're not used to THINKING that much, are they?

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I would like to see this written up in local papers with a 'support the veterans' slant.

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Good idea! 👍

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Yes, they need to be massively shamed.

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The Bible doesn't promote thinking only obeying or eternity in Hell.

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Flag-waving Rethuglikkkans forever chanting "Support Our Troops!" in front of cameras and microphones while simultaneously doing everything in their power to not only hinder veterans, but actually do them harm.

We saw the GQPs actions via Cadet Bonespurs and Company on display at Arlington recently. Trump and crew may as well have urinated on the graves of people Trump deems suckers and losers.

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Troops are disposable. That's why they waste them on poorly planned, often unnecessary 'conflicts'.

They are even more so when they come back and no longer serve a 'useful' function.

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The GQP has the gall to criticize the Biden Admin for the troop withdrawl from Afghanistan.

Who put us IN Afghanistan, Rethugs? Who was President? It sure wasn't a Democrat.

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It was Danger Yam that got the withdrawal started. They choose not to remember that aspect.

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Chump was also, as it happens, the one who signed the order to release a man who went on to become a suicide bomber- one of 5000 prisoners freed as part of Chump's deal with the Taliban which put them on the road back to power- and who killed those 13 servicemembers whose graves Chump just used as stage props.

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Bugs the piss out of me when our media fail to report on things like this.

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Fucking right! I pointed it out in every comment section I could.

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I had forgotten that.

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It was.

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And when we found Bin Laden he wasn’t in Afghanistan he was in Pakistan

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And it wasn't Bush who found him. Bush even said he didn't know where Bin Laden was and didn't care.

It was Obama who got the job done...and quickly...without losing a single American life.

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He didn't care about Bin Laden because his target all along was Saddam Hussein.

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And all that lovely oil.

They had to quickly change the name of the invasion/occupation of Iraq. It was originally dubbed Operation Iraqi Liberation. OIL. Bit of a giveaway.

And the longer they remained in Iraq, the more the Bush Crime Syndicate had to keep changing the reasons for being there.

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They treat the troops like toys, that they break, then toss aside. They love the idea of troops yet hate the soldier.

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Like their cult leader The Orange Menace, they do not like to see or acknowledge that many who were called upon by their country to see and do things they could later not handle are damaged through no cause of their own. These people need our help to find their ways back to useful functionality. Rethugs, being the antiempathetic bastards that they are, just want them to go away.

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I bet they had to keep an eye on Lewandowski, he doesn't act housebroken.

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Is it really an unintended mistake ? We already have several examples of nast-cs' opinion about women, people of color, homeless people and vets. For me it's two for one.

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Does the Bible reading event fall under the one day only restriction? Is this the only day they are reading the Bible in all 99 courthouses? Or do they get special privileges? Or wait, they already did a multiple day reading in July, so they can’t do the September reading, right? Right? And they don’t get to put up a nativity either. Well, the nativity will likely come from a bunch of different groups. I’m sure they’ll conscript all the local churches to sponsor the nativity each day so they’re technically not breaking the rule. Since there’s only one The Satanic Temple, they only get the one event for the one day.

This makes me think about the Christian sect that cannot have anything that’s comfortable so they require their tractors to have metal tires. FA did a story on them a while ago at Patheos and how the local government was trying to protect the roads but couldn’t pass laws that would even smell of targeting the religious group, because it was supposedly persecution of their sincerely held beliefs. But this type of mental gymnastics is fine. Nothing we can do. It’s okay to be blatantly targeting TST since they’re not Christian.

Paradise Lost has artistic and literary value, it’s a classic that is studied in schools, has quite a bit of morality, better than what’s found in the Bible, and is more interesting to read. Even under their own rules the Bible reading would be verboten, lusting after equine genitalia and collections of severed naughty cheerios.

Keep up the good work guys. Keep that spotlight directed right on their hypocrisy.

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Don't forget the erotic poem in the middle, and all the violence and gore. Children ripped to shreds by bears? Genocide after genocide? God himself lying, cheating, and murdering? The bible definetely hits every category of their obscenity rules.

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King David and his foreskin collection. Kinda like RFK Jr. and his roadkill collection...

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My guess (outlined below) is that they will twist the notion of groups to give huge advantage to CHristians. I.e. for Christians, each church is it's own separate group with it's own separate one day limit. For satanism, TST will be treated as one monolithic entity so any single TST display eliminates any further satanism display.

Which could run into 1A issues, because if you have the government deciding what counts as "one church" or "one sect", then that's a free exercise issue.

I would also guess that these conservatives are perfectly happy with their rule preventing people from doing Bible readings of the racy/gruesome parts. After all, they're puritans. They are perfectly happy with a rule that prevents people from knowing about those bits of their own holy text.

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Nice job, wingnuts. Ready. Fire. Aim.

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Not cool, man. Not cool at all.

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Not remotely cool. Not horribly thoughtful, either. Just stupid and mean and thoughtless, and that's a bad combination, any way you slice it.

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English Teachers of Iowa: March on the capitol! Your government has declared John Milton obscene! Do not allow this insanity to stand!

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On the other hand it might make the students more receptive.

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"Iowa officials tried to block a Satanic event. They hurt homeless veterans instead."

So, a two-fer from their point of view, then?

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For tRump, YES

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What does it matter that the GQP screwed over actual human beings? They got to stick it to their imaginary friend's imaginary enemy, and that's what really matters in the end.

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The 'one day per year' thing should be legally explored RIGHT NOW. I.e. what counts as the same organization. If Bob's satanic group puts up a display in July, does that Alice's can't put up a display in December? That would mean one Christian church display uses up that one day per year allotment for all other churches. Which seems unwworkable. But if each individual church is it's own organization, then the same must be true for TST chapters.

If I were the TST folks, I would explore this *now*. First, because it may give them a way to host their reading i.e. one TST chapter does day 1, a second does day 2, etc. And secondly, because you want this sorted out before December. You do not want the holiday season to show up before you hear the state say "well, every church is different so they can all put up displays. But every Satanist is part of TST so you count as all one thing."

Because that's exactly what they will do, if given a chance.

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They will leave one Christian holiday display up for the entire holiday season and then come up with transparently lame excuses for why it doesn't count for the one day rule when they are called out for it.

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Maybe not even an excuse. Maybe just "go ahead and sue us - the suit won't finish until after it's time to take it down, and then we'll pay the fine."

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The Xmas display will have a long list of daily sponsors.

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I'll start the Hellionic Temple of Barb.

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Parce que ce n'est pas encore fait ?

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The ignorance, fear, and bigotry of so many religious people often overpower good things that they might do:

Blocking a Satanic event penalized homeless veterans.

Rejecting atheist donations deprived orphans of funding.

Refusing LGBTQ+ people closed a shelter.

Discriminating against atheists lost a child a good adoptive family.

Snubbing a large atheist donation lost funding for cancer research.

These are just a few immediately off the top of my head. The list is very long. Anybody calling Christianity "the religion of love" is very self-deluded. Beam, meet eye.

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