Sanctuary City Rolls Out 'Satanic' Christmas Tree Display -- Then Vandals Strike
Plenty of towns have some sort of “Christmas in the Park”-style displays like the one in San Jose, California.
It’s the kind of event where Christmas trees with various themes are displayed, holiday movies are screened, Santa makes an appearance, that sort of thing.
Not too many of cities have satanic trees on display. In that regard, the city of San Jose is a bit different.
Proof that things are a bit different in the Bay Area, a tree sponsored by satanists and decorated with ornaments, all displayed in the public park Plaza de César Chávez, is now making more news because it was vandalized.
“Bay Area Satanist Simone Chavoor and her friend Tabitha spent Wednesday afternoon sprucing up the tree that was recently robbed,” KPIX-TV reported on Nov. 28.
“The group decorated the tree on Black Friday, complete with an elaborate goat head as a tree topper.
“Two days, later the topper and other satanic ornaments had vanished.”
“It could be anything from kids, to people who don’t agree with our viewpoint to people who are actually in agreement with us and think that our ornaments are cool,” Chavoor, who is a member of the group Satanic Bay Area and a satanic temple, told KPIX.
The satanic tree was the only one targeted, leading KPIX to wonder whether a hate crime complaint could be filed. No news on whether or not putting a satanic Christmas tree in an event designed to celebrate the birth of a Savior that worshippers of Satan are diametrically opposed to might be viewed as offensively incongruous as, oh, a Hamas display at a Hanukkah in the Park event.
Oh, wait, no there was — KPIX seemed to indicate that this was the Bay Area and they did things differently.
“Some may wonder why a Satanic group would have a decorated tree at a holiday display like Christmas in the Park, but not the organizers of the event or the people who set up the tree,” the TV station reported.
“To some people, the close juxtaposition of Christian and Satanic symbols at a community Christmas event is no big deal.”
The station quoted San Jose resident Grant Talarico: “It’s freedom of speech and religion,” she said. “So as far as I’m concerned the tree is fine.”
For interests of fairness, KPIX did have a dissenter: “I’m not Christian, but I’m sure some people would be offended because Christmas is a Christian holiday. And this seems like anti, since they have an upside down cross and everything,” Jag Jit, also of San Jose, said.
Jason Minsky with Christmas in the Park simply told the station that ornament theft was a pretty common affair.
“It happens every year that one tree will get its ornaments stolen,” Minsky said. “We encourage people not to put ornaments on the trees that they think people will want to take,” he said. “We encourage people to tie the ornaments to the tree so that they are harder to take.”
And apparently, the satanists really didn’t need those pentagrams or goat’s head or whatever got nicked.
“Ornament theft is a thing that happens at Christmas in the Park, unfortunately, and we even anticipated that ahead of time,” Satanic Bay Area organizer Daniel Walker told the San Francisco Chronicle.
“I don’t want to say we don’t mind, because it is annoying, but at the same time, (theft) is a fact of life. I was a little taken aback when I got the message today saying, ‘Hey if this keeps up, we’re going to have to make some new (ornaments) in about two weeks or so, it’s gonna run out if the (theft) rate doesn’t get down.’ That I did not expect.”
But satanists can be a publicity-hungry bunch. And hey, why get angry about poor law enforcement in San Jose? After all, it’s been one of the most out-front sanctuary cities in the United States.
“We are prepared and you are not alone,” San Jose Vice Mayor Magdalena Carrasco said in January of this year in response to the possibility of raids that would enforce federal immigration law, according to the San Jose Mercury-News.
If breaking one law is OK, why shouldn’t another one be?
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