After Mississippi state House candidate Michael Cassidy was arrested on Friday for tearing down the Satanic Temple’s Baphomet display in the Iowa state capitol, some Americans spoke out in his defense. One of those people is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who kicked against having such a display in public.

In a tweet on X on Friday morning, the GOP presidential candidate declared that satanism does not have a place in America and “should not be recognized” as a religion by the government.

“Satan has no place in our society and should not be recognized as a ‘religion’ by the federal government…Good prevails over evil — that’s the American spirit,” the tweet read.

DeSantis also promised to contribute to Cassidy’s legal defense, as he was charged with fourth-degree criminal mischief.

https://ttwitter.com/RonDeSantis/status/1735671610617499886?s=20

The issue of the display came up recently during a town hall event DeSantis held last week. DeSantis had actually suggested that nothing can be done about it, as he tried to put the blame on former President Trump’s administration under which the IRS recognized the temple as an official house of worship.

The IRS had made the temple an official house of worship in 2019 while Trump was president, granting it tax-exempt protections under the First Amendment.

During his town hall event, DeSantis said of the display, “So it’s interesting, I heard this, and then I was like, ‘Well, how did it get there? Is that even a religion?’ And low and behold, the Trump administration gave them approval to be under the IRS as a religion. So that gave them the legal ability to potentially do it.”

According to DeSantis, the IRS ruling “may have” given the Satanic Temple “a legal leg to stand on.”

“And low and behold, the Trump administration gave them approval to be under the IRS as a religion. But I do think that IRS ruling, I was really surprised to see that they did that,” he added.

When CNN host Jake Tapper pointed out that the IRS ruling does not equal satanism on the government’s part, he agreed, but emphasized that the IRS was wrong for making that ruling as it “recognized” satanism as a religion.

“I don’t think that was the right decision. Even as a religion, that’s wrong,” he insisted.