Satanic Temple Sues After School Bans “Satan Club”

Harrisburg’s CBS News affiliate reports:

Just days after being voted down from having an After School Satan Club, The Satanic Temple is filing for a civil law suit against the elementary school, according to Mathew Kezhaya who serves as the general counsel for The Satanic Temple.

Kezhaya says the main issues to be litigated is whether the school board was discriminating against The Satanic Temple by allowing in some after school clubs, but not The Satanic Temple.

School officials made statements on the records that if The Satanic Temple removed “Satan” from the name, it would improve the chances it has of becoming a club, according to Kezhaya.

The York Daily Record reports:

The Northern York County School District board denied a resident’s request 8-1 to form an After School Satan Club in Northern Elementary School during Tuesday’s meeting. Hundreds from the community filled the auditorium for the board meeting and erupted into applause when the votes were taken on the issue. Only board member Thomas Welch voted in favor of the club.

The evening had more than two hours of citizen comments, with the majority opposed to the adoption of the club. Many comments focused on the age of the children the club would target, the cultural and biblical issues and the content on the Satanic Temple’s website. Many of the residents spent the evening rallying the crowd and quoting scripture, saying regardless of any laws that allow freedom of speech, proposing the club is morally wrong.

The Christian Post reports:



In its handbook, the After School Satan Club claims “to focus on free inquiry and rationalism, the scientific basis for which we know what we know about the world around us.” The group also contends that it uses Satan in its title because, to them, the devil is not a “supernatural being.”

“Instead, Satan is a literary figure that represents a metaphorical construct of rejecting tyranny over the human mind and spirit,” the handbook reads.

“It is our goal to provide a fun, intellectually stimulating, and non-proselytizing alternative to current religious after-school clubs being offered in our public schools, which aim to indoctrinate children into their religious view,” the handbook continues.