As the saying goes, what’s good for the goose is good for the, erm, satanic goose, and one group of faux satanists is vowing to prove once again that theocracy is incompatible with the Constitution.
The Satanic Temple—the winsome wags who brought you Samuel Alito’s Mom’s Satanic Abortion Clinic—are now fixing to test the limits of a new Florida law that opens schools to “additional counseling and support to students” from outside organizations.
That sounds innocuous enough, because who doesn’t want to support students? But the law is really just another in a recent spate of measures intended to beer-bong specific religious flavors down the throats of nondrinkers, Zima partisans, and wine cooler aficionados alike. (Forgive the dated references, but some of us remain nostalgic for the days when wearing a goofy tank helmet could sink your campaign, and proposing a migrant fight league or claiming electric planes crash when the sun goes down would get you ostracized from polite society and/or kicked out of Supercuts.)
Although HB 931 leaves the implementation of chaplain programs to individual school districts, and only requires schools to list a volunteer’s religion “if any”, [Gov. Ron] DeSantis has made clear its intent is to restore the tenets of Christianity to public education.
Without the bill, DeSantis said at its signing in April: “You’re basically saying that God has no place [on campus]. That’s wrong.”
Is it wrong, though? Would it really be that awful if religious people confined their rites and rhetoric to the vast majority of the American landmass that isn’t school property? If parents want to take their kids to the Grand Canyon and tell them Noah’s flood made that ditch, that’s their right. But why should members of the marginally cognizant community be forced to hear it?
So as they’ve done numerous times before, satanists are coming to the rescue.
