A Pennsylvania school district must allow an “After School Satan Club” — which does not believe in or praise Satan — to meet on campus, thanks to a federal judge’s Monday ruling centered around the First Amendment.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in March on behalf of the sponsor of the club, The Satanic Temple, after it was barred from meeting at the Saucon Valley School District. The organization cheered the judge’s decision as “a victory for free speech and religious freedom.”
The Satanic Temple launched the After School Satan Club in 2016 to “provide a safe and inclusive alternative to the religious clubs that use threats of eternal damnation to convert school children to their belief system,” as it states on its website.
The club “focuses on science, critical thinking, creative arts, and good works for the community,” the website says.
Wait, they’re just a bunch of arts and science geeks doing things to improve their community? That’s way worse! Just as dancing can lead to sex, an appreciation for critical thinking, creative expression, and scientific inquiry can lead to Dungeons & Dragons. And no responsible parent wants that.
After determining that the school district’s original decision to ban the group was based on clear bias, Judge Gallagher was unequivocal in stating that the group’s interests needed to be protected.
“When confronted with a challenge to free speech, the government’s first instinct must be to forward expression rather than quash it,” he wrote. “Particularly when the content is controversial or inconvenient. Nothing less is consistent with the expressed purpose of American government to secure the core, innate rights of its people.”
The district had initially allowed the club to meet at the school but revoked its permission after a flyer promoting the club was distributed and one community member made a violent threat on the school’s voicemail saying he was going to come and “shoot everybody.” After that, all hell broke loose.
Around the same time, district officials noticed social media posts publicizing the club that did not disclaim the district’s lack of sponsorship as is required by district policy, according to court records. Due to these posts, the club’s access to the school facilities was revoked.
“Our community has experienced chaos,” the superintendent said in a Feb. 24 statement regarding the decision to ban the club. “Our students, staff and teachers have had to endure a threat to their safety and welfare. The gravity of feelings of instability, anxiety and fear have been profound.”
[…]In response, the Satanic Temple filed a complaint against the school district on March 30, arguing that the club was barred from the school because of “an unconstitutional heckler’s veto arising from community members …”
And while a threat of violence is clearly a legitimate concern, the whole thing could have been avoided if the district had stayed out of the religion game to begin with—because they’re running schools, not churches.
For its part, the ACLU was over the moon it lustily bays at during its biannual solstice blood rituals.
“We applaud the court for recognizing the threat to the First Amendment rights of the After School Satan Club and The Satanic Temple and preventing Saucon Valley School District from continuing its brazen discrimination,” stated Sara Rose, deputy legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania. “This ruling sends a powerful message that the First Amendment protects the viewpoints and beliefs of all people and faiths. When a school district opens up its facilities, it cannot discriminate based on religious beliefs. This ruling reinforces the principle of equal access and ensures that all views have a fair opportunity to be expressed.”
Of course, this decision is bound to rankle the christofascists of the world, but there’s a clear solution: They could pray to and worship their god in any one of millions of nonpublic facilities across the country. So weird how they’ve never thought about this. Unless this is really all about swaying young, impressionable minds to their way of thinking by securing a de facto endorsement from their local public institutions.
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That’s exactly the point that the decidedly secularist Satanic Temple—sponsors of the after-school program as well as the folks behind the Samuel Alito’s Mom’s Satanic Abortion Clinic—is keen on making. If public facilities are going to open their doors to mainstream Christian religious groups, they have to take all comers. The First Amendment does not discriminate, and the right to worship freely is not subject to popularity contests.
As the Temple notes in its section on the After School Satan Club—under the heading “Educatin’ With Satan”—the group “does not believe in introducing religion into public schools and will only open a club if other religious groups are operating on campus. ASSC exists to provide a safe and inclusive alternative to the religious clubs that use threats of eternal damnation to convert school children to their belief system.”
In other words, what’s good for the goose is good for the crow who tries to peck out your eye as you drift inexorably down the river Styx toward a yawning, desolate, inky-black crevasse of eternal misery.
Hail After School Satan Club! And hail Satanic Temple! Unlike that other pro-Satan group, you keep winning and winning—and we’re not close to getting tired of it.
Sign if you agree: America is not a Christian theocracy.
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