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Despite criticism from a Congressman and others, The National Railroad Museum isn't backing down from its decision to display a Satan-themed Christmas tree and the museum's CEO said she'd welcome the opportunity to do so again next year.
The Wisconsin museum has been featuring the tree decorated with Satanic imagery since November 16 as part of its Festival of Trees, which has been one of its major fundraising events for 15 years.
The controversial tree is sponsored by the Satanic Temple of Wisconsin and decorations include ornaments promoting its website address and others that read "Hail Satan," "Hail Santa" and a rainbow-colored one reading, "Hail All."
The imagery also features pentagrams, upside-down crosses, a creature akin to a human-goat hybrid and "666," traditionally considered the mark of Satan.
On Sunday, Representative Mike Gallagher appeared on Fox News to blast the tree as "cultural propaganda."
"It's impossible to overstate how offensive this is to Christians. It would be, in quite a literal sense, the same thing as waving a Hamas flag inside of a synagogue," Gallagher said.
The congressman also used the tree as an example of his notion that it's not the right that is picking culture-war battles, but the left.
"Conservatives are often accused of launching a culture war or focusing or fixating on cultural issues. But here is a perfect example of how that's not what's happening," he said.
"We're just trying to defend basic traditions or defend our children in the midst of these basic traditions, from the encroachment of woke ideology."
Newsweek reached out to the museum for comment, and a spokesman said that it sticks by comments made by CEO Jacqueline Frank to the Green Bay Press Gazette.
Frank told the outlet that she would "absolutely" welcome a tree from the Satanic Temple back next year.
Frank said that, of the 66 trees on display, only six were decorated by Christian groups. Others include one with a LEGO theme, another promoting the drinking of tea and one that promotes gender diversity.
"If we want to be an inclusive organization, we want to make sure that everybody is comfortable," Frank told the outlet.
She also said that she didn't want to set a precedent of saying "no" to certain groups over others, with the exception that no tree is allowed to promote violence, sexual content or the use of alcohol or drugs
The Satanic Temple was co-founded in 2012 by Lucien Greaves and it has grown to more than 50 chapters, one being the Wisconsin group that paid up to $150 for the privilege of sponsoring a tree at the museum this year.
Greaves declined Newsweek's request for comment, instead pointing to Substack, where he wrote on Sunday that his group is "free to offend."
"Our battle is not against religion (we are a religion) but against tyranny and theocracy," Greaves wrote.
"But even if our primary motivation were nothing more than the criticism of religious superstition, it would be an indefensible abridgement of Religious Freedom to deny us that flexibility of religious opinion."
The Satanic Temple is also behind the controversial After School Satan Clubs that occasionally pop up at schools nationwide, and it hands out "Devil's Advocate Scholarships" in the amount $666.
It also raises money for abortions and, in the wake of Roe v. Wade being overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, it introduced what it calls "The Satanic Abortion Rule" in order to claim religious freedom in states that restrict the procedure.
"To the Satanist, embracing 'blasphemous' imagery takes on a religious significance of its own, signifying personal liberation from superstition," Greaves wrote Sunday at Substack.
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About the writer
Paul Bond has been a journalist for three decades. Prior to joining Newsweek he was with The Hollywood Reporter. He ... Read more