ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Members of the Satanic Temple were at it again this week, stirring up unrest and stoking religious sensibilities and demanding Arkansas legislators give their Baphomet statue the same equal access to Capitol grounds as a monument of the Ten Monuments.

As a monument of the same type of historical Ten Commandments that has already been subjected to Supreme Court scrutiny, back in 2005, and OK’d for public display.

Somebody go get Gideon.

Gideon, of course, was God’s chosen judge to lead the people of Israel in victory against the Midianites. Pre-battle, God told Gideon to go tear down the altar of the false god Baal that had been constructed by his own father and used as a blasphemous place of worship. Gideon did — but by night.

“Then Gideon took ten men of his servants, and did as the Lord had said unto him: and so it was, because he feared his father’s household, and the men of the city, that he could not do it by day, that he did it by night,” Judges 6:27 states.

That was then.

It’s different now.

This is America, circa 2018, home to the Constitution and religious freedoms, where smashing peoples’ properties just isn’t prudent. Or Christian, for that matter.

But just because the Satanic Temple has been entirely subversive about exploiting America’s First Amendment to include displays of abominations, masked as religion, doesn’t mean the citizenry — the ones offended at this brash deviation of Founding Father intent — is entirely defenseless. Satanists may be demanding placement of an 8-1/2 foot tall bronze statue of Baphomet on the Arkansas State Capitol grounds to “support the First Amendment and religious plurality,” as Marine Glisovic with the local KATV reported.

But there’s considerable pushback.

Rep. Jason Rapert, responding to the satanists’ plans, said in a Facebook post that yes, while the likes of Satanic Temple members — “outsiders,” from out-of-state — have the right to come to Arkansas to uplift “the profane,” the citizens of the state have their rights, as well.

He wrote: “The Constitution also protects the rights of the people to elect legislators to govern on their behalf, with their consent. The legislature carried out the will of the citizens of Arkansas when it overwhelmingly approved Act 1231 of 2015. State legislators responded to the will of Arkansans by passing the Arkansas Ten Commandments Monument Act and our Governor signed the bill into law.”

The people have voted; the people have spoken.

The people of Arkansas,” Rapert went on, “have exercised their rights to place a monument on the state Capitol grounds which honors the influence of the Ten Commandments as an historical and moral foundation of law.”

Translation?

Satanic Temple minions, take your Baphomet and go home.

And with that, comes the single biggest tool of defense for those wishing a stop to the insanity: So long as men and women of principle are willing to stand and fight, then the light can shine in even the darkest of places.

It just takes one. A single voice can sway thousands.

Arkansas may be facing an attack of abominations with the snarky special interests of the Satanic Temple. But right will eventually make might. All it needs is faith and those with courage to draw a line in the sand and make clear, hey, this is a boundary that cannot be crossed. Never quit, never give in, never cede the fight.

• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter, @ckchumley.

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