Three years ago, a horned figure of Baphomet stood inside the Iowa State Capitol alongside
Christmas trees, a nativity scene, menorahs and other seasonal displays. The state had approved The Satanic Temple of Iowa’s installation under rules that opened the rotunda to outside groups. Gov. Kim Reynolds disliked it, but defended the principle behind its presence: “In a free society, the best response to objectionable speech is more speech.”
One man, however, decided a hammer would be a more effective response. He would later enter the rotunda and destroy the statue.
The incident has blossomed into a federal religious-freedom case with potentially tremendous consequences. On August 13, The Satanic Temple and a Satanic minister from Iowa named Mortimer Adramelech sued the Iowa Department of Administrative Services, its current director Mark Campbell, and its former director Adam Steen. They allege Iowa rejected their 2024 and 2025 holiday events because officials disapproved of their religion, then delayed a 2026 application.
The lawsuit has not been decided. At this stage, those are the plaintiffs’ allegations, not judicial findings. But the case puts an unusually sharp question before the state: if government opens a public space to religious expression, how much room does it have to decide which religions belong there?
From Baphomet to Krampus
The dispute began in December 2023, when The Satanic Temple received permission for its Baphomet display in the Capitol rotunda. The installation drew protests and prayer gatherings. On December 14, a Mississippi man decided he had had enough. He entered the rotunda and damaged the statue beyond repair. While he was initially charged with a hate crime, he was later permitted to plead guilty to a reduced charge of third-degree criminal mischief.
Then came the group's next confrontation with the state.
On July 12, 2024, The Satanic Temple applied to hold a four-day public reading of John Milton's Paradise Lost at the Capitol. Two weeks later, on July 26, the Iowa Department of Administrative Services suddenly revised its rules for events at the Capitol complex. Among the changes, organizations would generally be restricted to one event per calendar year, and multi-day events would no longer be permitted.
Officials applied the new rules to The Satanic Temple's pending application. The group could hold a one-day Paradise Lost event, but doing so would consume its sole event for the year and prevent it from returning for its planned December holiday gathering. The Satanic Temple withdrew the application for the Milton reading in order to save its allotted event for December.
Former DAS Director Adam Steen has since publicly linked these policy changes to the controversy over Satanic events at the Capitol. Speaking in October 2025, Steen said, “I’m also the guy that changed the policy to make sure that we weren’t going to lose a ‘free speech’ argument.” At a campaign appearance the following May, Steen described state officials as realizing after the Baphomet controversy that the existing policy left them “exposed,” and said the department subsequently changed its rules.
So, Milton discarded, the Satanists applied to host a one-day holiday event on December 14, 2024. According to the federal complaint, its plans included crafts like coloring pages and make-and-take ornaments, as well a religious ritual, the singing of Satanic carols, and a Krampus costume contest. Krampus, a horned figure from Central European folklore, is traditionally portrayed as punishing misbehaving children during the Christmas season.
State administrators requested more details about the program. The congregation supplied song lyrics, coloring pages, ornament information, costume photographs and a description of the ritual. Four days later, Director Steen denied the application under a Capitol rule barring obscene material and gratuitous violence or gore.
Steen later informed the group that the presence of minors, combined with Krampus costumes featuring sticks that could potentially be used as weapons, made the event harmful to children, according to correspondence quoted in the complaint. The Satanists clarified that the sticks were props and that they had no plans to strike children with them, and even went so far as to offer to remove the costume contest entirely. No dice.
Iowa did deny some other groups seeking to hold events on the the same December 14 date in 2024, including a Mennonite youth group and a Christmas chorale. The complaint says those applications missed the Capitol’s 30-day deadline. The Satanic Temple’s application was timely, and the stated reason for its rejection was very different.
What Was Iowa Protecting?
Before the new federal lawsuit was filed, Iowa officials defended the 2024 decision as a child-safety issue rather than a ban on Satanism. Gov. Reynolds later claimed that the proposed event specifically targeted children and would have been harmful to minors. The Capitol is visited by school groups and families, and its rules allow administrators to reject events that threaten public health, safety or welfare.
That is the strongest version of Iowa’s argument. Equal access does not mean every proposed activity must be approved, and the state can enforce neutral safety rules against religious and secular groups alike.
By then, Iowa had denied another application from the group. The congregation applied again in September 2025 to hold another December holiday event in the rotunda. After corresponding with organizers and requesting event details. On November 24, the state once again denied their request to hold an event. This time, the complaint says, the message didn't cite any particular reason for the denial.
So, the Satanists applied yet again in March 2026 to hold a holiday event in the rotunda on December 12 of this year. This time, Iowa officials did eventually placed the event on the Capitol calendar and sent an agreement in July. The Satanic Temple signed and returned it, but says it still lacked final approval for the event when their lawsuit was filed.
Iowa Reverses the One-Event Rule
By then, one of the restrictions at the center of the earlier dispute had disappeared.
The one-event-per-year policy had consequences beyond The Satanic Temple. In 2025, it disrupted Music Under the Stars, a summer concert series that had been held on the Capitol grounds for nearly eight decades. The Capitol Planning Commission subsequently recommended changing the policy.
Then the Iowa Legislature stepped in.
In April 2026, Gov. Reynolds signed HF 2671, legislation prohibiting the Department of Administrative Services from approving or denying an application based on the number of events an individual or organization has already requested or held at the Capitol complex. The bill passed the Senate unanimously, 46-0, and the House approved the amended version 92-0.
The current Capitol agreement sent to The Satanic Temple in July no longer includes the one-event-per-year restriction. Indoor events are still generally limited to a single day, although the DAS director has authority to approve exceptions.
The result is an unusual chronology now facing the federal court. Iowa allowed the Baphomet display in 2023. Officials changed the Capitol's event policies after The Satanic Temple sought to return in 2024. The state rejected Satanic holiday events in both 2024 and 2025. Then lawmakers eliminated one of the new restrictions before the group applied again in 2026.
Iowa’s Religious Freedom Law Enters the Case
The timing gives the lawsuit another dimension. In April 2024, Gov. Reynolds signed Iowa’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA. The law generally bars state and local government from substantially burdening religious exercise unless doing so serves a compelling governmental interest through the least restrictive means available.
The law was enacted to protect religious exercise, and in recent years some argue that the wave of "religious freedom" laws that have been passed in a number of states are being used primarily to pave the way for Christianity to play a larger role in the lives of the public. Now, The Satanic Temple is hoping to utilize that doorway too.
The lawsuit also brings claims under the First Amendment’s protections for speech and religious exercise, the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and the Iowa Civil Rights Act. The plaintiffs seek damages for the earlier denials and an injunction requiring nondiscriminatory treatment of future applications. They also want the court to allow the December 2026 event to take place while the case proceeds.
The case arrives with one administrative finding already in the record. In November 2025, the Iowa Office of Civil Rights concluded that the group’s discrimination complaint over the 2024 event warranted further investigation. The federal complaint describes the report as finding probable cause to believe discrimination may have occurred. That was not a final judicial ruling.
As of August 20, however, Iowa officials have not yet filed their substantive response to the new federal lawsuit, so it is not yet clear precisely how the state will defend the challenged decisions in court.
Does Satanism Count as Religion?
For readers who hear “Satanic Temple” and immediately picture devil worship, some clarification is probably in order.
The Satanic Temple describes itself as a nontheistic religious organization. It does not teach that Satan is a literal supernatural being. Instead, it uses Satan as a literary symbol of rebellion against arbitrary authority and organizes its ethics around seven tenets dealing with compassion, justice, bodily autonomy, scientific understanding and individual liberty. It is distinct from the Church of Satan founded by Anton LaVey in the 1960s. Some ministers of the Universal Life Church also hold beliefs aligned with those of the Satanic Temple.
That distinction, however, does not make its imagery less offensive to Christians who understand Satan as the embodiment of evil. The fury over the Baphomet display in Iowa was genuine. Gov. Reynolds called the display “absolutely objectionable,” while others staged protests and prayer gatherings around it.
But distaste for a particular religion, many argue, should have little bearing on its legal treatment. That leaves a hard question for the court: did officials apply neutral rules to the group? Or treat it differently because of its religious viewpoint?
That principle has produced similar disputes elsewhere. When lawmakers have proposed religious chaplains in public schools, the Satanic Temple has sought access for its own ministers. And during a Black Mass controversy at the Kansas Capitol, officials faced another clash between offensive religious expression and access to public space.
Equal Access Gets Uncomfortable
None of that guarantees The Satanic Temple will win. Iowa can argue that administrators enforced legitimate rules for a government building, and a judge will have to assess the record rather than the parties’ descriptions of it. The 2026 application also differs from the previous two because the state has already taken steps toward approval instead of formally rejecting it.
For Universal Life Church ministers, the dispute touches a question that extends far beyond Satanism: when government creates space for religion, what does equal treatment require when the next faith through the door looks nothing like the last one?
The Satanic Temple has asked the court to rule on preliminary relief by November 20 so it has time to prepare for its December 12 event.
Where should a state be allowed to set limits on religious events in a public building, and what evidence should it need to show those limits concern safety rather than the religion involved?
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