Life & Society

Satanic Temple Seeks to Bring ‘After School Satan Club’ to Elementary Schools Nationwide

Satanic Temple

The Satanic Temple, a professing atheist group that masquerades as a Satanist organization, is seeking to bring an “After School Satan Club” to schools nationwide in order to make a point about Bible clubs in public schools.

The organization recently released a promotional video outlining its plans, complete with eerie music, growling and Satanic imagery.

“This year, a new after school program will be offered in elementary schools nationwide,” video text reads. “An after school club focused on rationalism, free inquiry and fun.”

Co-Founder Doug Mesner, who goes by the name Lucien Greaves, outlined on a website dedicated to the effort that its goal is to place clubs in districts where Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) is hosting after-school Good News Clubs.

“All of the districts we’ve approached are nearby to local chapters of The Satanic Temple, and each school district has hosted, or is now hosting, Good News Clubs in their schools,” he said. “This being the case, we are sure that the school districts we’ve approached are well aware that they are not at liberty to deny us use of their facilities, nor are they at liberty to deny us any level of representation in the schools that they afford to other school clubs—such as fliers, tables, brochures, and school-wide announcements.”

“We would like to thank the [evangelical legal group] Liberty Counsel, specifically, for opening the doors of public schools to the After School Satan Club through their dedication to religious liberty,” Greaves added with sarcasm.

He explained that districts across the country have been sent letters about The Satanic Temple’s intentions to offer the club in schools. Children will be sent home in the fall with permission slips for parents to sign.

“It’s important that children be given an opportunity to realize that the evangelical materials now creeping into their schools are representative of but one religious opinion amongst many,” Greaves said. “While the Good News Clubs focus on indoctrination, instilling them with a fear of Hell and God’s wrath, After School Satan Clubs will focus on free inquiry and rationalism, the scientific basis for which we know what we know about the world around us.”

As previously reported, the Satanic Temple sought to place Satanic literature in schools in Delta County, Colorado earlier this year after it took issue with a Bible distribution by Gideon International. It attempted to do the same in Florida in 2014 when a Christian ministry made Bibles available to high school students on “Religious Freedom Day.”

The Satanic Temple also launched an effort to erect an homage to Satan on the grounds of the Oklahoma capitol building in 2013 after the ACLU filed a lawsuit challenging the presence of a Ten Commandments monument at the location.

Earlier this month, Satanic Temple member David Suhor was permitted to deliver a Satanic invocation during the Pensacola City Hall meeting, which he admitted was done to combat what he saw as “Christian privilege.”

“[G]o to a moment of silence that lets everybody pray or not according to their own conscience,” he declared, angrily smacking his notebook on the podium.

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