Satanic Temple sues Minnesota city over proposed monument

BELLE PLAINE, Minn. – Massachusetts-based Satanic Temple sues a Minnesota city for withdrawing permission for a satanic monument.

The group’s co-founder Malcolm Jarry tells the Star Tribune people have a right to protest the proposed monument in Belle Plaine, but not at the expense of the group’s civil rights.

The issue began in 2017 when officials decided to allow a steel silhouette of a soldier praying over a grave marked with a cross at a veterans’ memorial park. The Satanic Temple wanted its own monument in an area the city designated as a public forum. That came after complaints that the soldiers’ monument violated the separation of church and state.

Officials shut down the public forum area when more complaints came over the proposed satanic monument.