Recognized as a religion by the IRS, the group uses the religious right’s tactics, and their victories, against them
Satan is a feminist now
The devil works hard, but the Republican party works harder. Not a day seems to go by without anti-abortion zealots on the right advancing some cunning new plan to strip women of their bodily autonomy. As well as shutting down abortion clinics, Republican states are trying to essentially outlaw abortion pills: on Friday, Missouri, Kansas and Idaho renewed a legal push to drastically reduce access to mifepristone.
Amid this hellscape, help may be at hand from a somewhat unlikely source: Satan. Or, to be more accurate – and since the devil is in the details – the Satanic Temple.
Founded in 2012, the Satanic Temple (which is not to be confused with the very different Church of Satan) is not about devil worship. Rather, it is about raising hell to fight for freedom from the religious right’s crusade to impose their beliefs on everyone else. “Right now, we have a minority religious theocratic movement, so entrenched in politics and getting away with whatever they want,” co-founder Lucien Greaves told the Guardian earlier this year.
I’m well aware of the fact that Lucien Graeves is a shitbag, but TST does great work in spite of that, and they’re one of the only organizations that fight theistic nationalists in ways that actually bring attention to the issue.
Until a better group with unproblematic leadership comes along (maybe Global Order of Satan if they gain the resources to do similar activism?), I’d say it makes sense to critically support their work instead of dissuading people from supporting them at all.