Satanism and the Constitution in Iowa

With all due respect, Representative Dunwell is mistaken about the constitutional requirements here. Nothing in the First Amendment, properly understood, would prohibit the legislature from taking a pass on the Satanic exhibit, even if it permitted other—and more conventional, mainstream, and wholesome—religious displays. The First Amendment bars the state from making any law or adopting any policy “prohibiting the free exercise of religion.” There is no real free exercise question here, since no religion has a free exercise right to make use of public property for the sake of religious expression. If the Satanic display had been evicted from the statehouse, the Satanists would be free to erect it elsewhere, on their own property or the property of some willing person.