Satanic Temple

Wednesday

Matt McDonald

Normal wins elections

Republicans nationwide are picking up the pieces after a disappointing election night. A much vaunted, Glenn Youngkin-fronted effort to take full control of the Virginia General Assembly failed devastatingly, as the Democrats held onto the State Senate and flipped the House of Delegates. In Kentucky, incumbent Governor Andy Beshear held off a challenge from Attorney General Daniel Cameron. And in Ohio, voters opted to enshrine the right to an abortion and legalize marijuana, both by a margin of thirteen percentage points. Virginia Republicans pulled off a shock upset in 2021 when they took the House of Delegates and the governor’s mansion. The lanky quarterzip-wearing Carlyle Group executive picked key wedge issues that turned moderate heads.

normal

Sunday

Amber Duke

The Satanic Temple’s legal campaign against criticism

What happens when you create a de jure religious organization for the purposes of opposing organized religion? In the case of the Satanic Temple, you seemingly become the thing that you hate. After I wrote about the Satanic Temple's attempt to start an After School Satan Club at an elementary school in Chesapeake, Virginia, I was made aware of an ongoing legal battle between TST and some of its former members. TST accused four former members of hacking a Facebook group for a Washington State chapter, as well as a related meme page, and using it to post defamatory claims about the organization and its leadership. The Satanic Temple's latest lawsuit against these former members was dismissed in January by a district court.

Tuesday

Amber Duke

‘Hail Satan’: a Virginia town at war over After School Satan Club

Chesapeake, Virginia  If you're looking for a Christmas display to rival Clark Griswold's 25,000 twinkling incandescent lights, the Chesapeake City Hall is a good place to start. The building lights up each year for its "Deck the Hall" event, a drive-through light display featuring candy cane-wrapped trees, glittering snowflakes and City Hall itself glowing red and green. The decorations were so bright I had a difficult time reading the signs that would point me to the Chesapeake Public Schools building. Luckily, it only took a few more turns before I saw two parking lots full of cars and a line of people sprawling down the block. The crowd wasn't there to take in the beautiful Christmas lights.

after school satan club

Thursday

Michael Warren Davis

The Satanic Temple comes to Boston

The Satanic Temple is petitioning the City of Boston to fly their newly designed Satanic flag over City Hall. After a court ruled that the city had to fly a Christian group’s flag, the Temple insisted that it also had the right to display its banner during “Satanic Appreciation Week” from July 23 to 29. According to Lucien Greaves, the Temple’s founder, “A public forum that allows for religious expression can either announce a dedication to religious pluralism or it can signal a decline into theocracy by allowing public representatives to dictate limits on the civic capacities of some religious identities by exercising exclusive preference for others.” If Mr.