Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin issued a statement earlier this week to satanists, condemning a scheduled “Black Mass” in Oklahoma City in September.
“This ’Black Mass’ is a disgusting mockery of the Catholic faith and it should be equally repellant to Catholics and non-Catholics alike,” the governor wrote in the statement, which was posted on the state’s website. “It may be protected by the First Amendment, but that doesn’t mean we can’t condemn it in the strongest terms possible for the moral outrage which it is.”
She called the planned assembly “shocking and disgusting” and asked the group to change plans.
“It is shocking and disgusting that a group of New York City ’satanists’ would travel all the way to Oklahoma to peddle their filth here,” she wrote. “I pray they realize how hurtful their actions are and cancel this event.”
Problem is, Mrs. Fallin petitioned the wrong group of satanists to change their plans. Her plea targeted the Satanic Temple, based in New York City, but the group planning the Sept. 21 event at the City Civic Center in Oklahoma City actually hails from Oklahoma City, Raw Story reported.
Satanic Temple officials demanded an apology for the mix-up.
“We have nothing to do with this event whatsoever,” Lucien Greaves, a spokesman for the Satanic Temple, told a local news station. “For the governor to display such a complete failure of due diligence, to the point of erroneously focusing public ire on us, is unconscionable. We’re disgusted. We have sown a great deal of goodwill in Oklahoma and this seems to be a deliberate attempt to undermine that. I feel the governor owes our organization an apology.”
The Satanic Temple, however, has pushed to erect a 7-foot tall goat-headed statue of the pagan god Baphomet at the Capitol property — the group’s response to lawmakers who allowed a display of faith-based monuments on the site.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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