religious freedom

The Satanic Temple is Now a Tax-Exempt “Church” Says the IRS

This story is bound to raise a few eyebrows: The IRS just gave the Satanic Temple (ST) full tax-exempt status. The ST, not to be confused with the Church of Satan, has only been around since 2013. According to its website, members don’t actually believe in the supernatural or worship Satan. In fact the organization’s leader, Lucien Greaves, calls it more of a “resistance movement,” one that, like its more benignly named counterparts such as the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) or Americans United for the Separation of Church and State (AU), opposes what it sees as Christianity being too cozy with government.

In other words, it’s a secularist group that strongly supports the “separation of church and state” and sees a theocracy under every high school football game prayer or Ten Commandments monument. It’s basically just another anti-Christian group with a penchant for litigation and garnering media attention.

So why did the ST apply for an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) designation as a “church?” In its own words from an announcement on its website: “This [IRS] acknowledgment will help make sure the Satanic Temple has the same access to public spaces as other religious organizations, affirm our standing in court when battling religious discrimination, and enable us to apply for faith-based government grants.” Not exactly a blood sacrificing, howling at the moon sort of organization.

The IRS has criteria it applies when deciding whether an organization can be called a church, including a creed, doctrine, literature of its own, a religious history, established “places of worship,” etc. An organization attempting to qualify needs to meet most, but not all, of the criteria. We’re not sure how the ST qualified, but if an online store where you can buy satanic mugs and hoodies is a factor, they’ve got that covered.

The ST likes to make publicity waves by offering statues of Baphomet to state and local governments which have monuments like the Ten Commandments on public grounds, or offering to start an “After School Satan Club” at public schools that have Christian clubs. They make outlandish offers to gain media attention.

The latest IRS news, therefore, is just another attempt to get attention (and attract tax-deductible contributions, no doubt) rather than act as a signal that the U.S. government is endorsing satanic worship.

Cornell Group Invites, Then Disinvites Pro-Life Speaker Over Her Religious Views

Jannique Stewart is a pro-life speaker who received an invitation in January to speak about abortion—from a pro-life perspective—at an event the Cornell University Political Union (CPU) was going to hold in April. The CPU holds itself out as “a diverse group of undergraduates passionate about politics, active on campus, dedicated to elevating minority voices, and committed to finding common ground by engaging in respectful discussion and debate.”

On March 23, Ms. Stewart posted that she had received a phone call from someone at the CPU disinviting her because of what she calls her “outspoken beliefs regarding biblical sexuality,” meaning that sexual activity should be reserved for marriage, and that marriage is defined as the union of one man and one woman. She alleges she was told that allowing someone like her to speak on campus was “tantamount to allowing a racist to speak who held pro-slavery and pro-holocaust views.”

That’s when things got interesting.

The CPU denies disinviting her because of her religious beliefs about sex and marriage. It alleges that it was concerned about security costs of bringing a conservative speaker to campus, and that the issue was discussed with Ms. Stewart. But Stewart says the security issue was discussed in a general way back in January, but not in the conversation where she was disinvited.

Then a Cornell sophomore, Brendan Dodd, resigned as CPU’s Vice President of Finance, and in a letter to Cornell’s student newspaper, The Cornell Daily Sun, pretty much backs Ms. Stewart’s version of the disinvitation, with the exception that he never heard anyone likening Ms. Stewart’s beliefs to promoting slavery or denying the Holocaust.

Where does the university stand on all this? Joel M. Malina, Vice President for University Relations at Cornell issued a statement distancing the Administration from the actions of the CPU:

“As we have frequently noted, free speech is an essential part of Cornell University’s commitment to the discovery of truth, and the University’s leadership is resolute in upholding the principle of freedom of expression on our campuses.

“Recently, we learned that an independent, student-run organization, the Cornell Political Union, had already decided to rescind an invitation to a speaker for an event on our Ithaca campus. They made this decision without engaging with the administration on event planning or security. The University in no way requested or suggested that any guest be excluded from attending this campus event, and to date we have made no recommendation related to potential university costs associated with supporting the event.”

What we are left with, then, is a tale of how a student group, formed for the very purpose of engaging with controversial ideas, decided to bail on an invited speaker not because her topic was too controversial, but because her religious views on an unrelated issue were. And they weren’t even honest enough to come clean when called on it, but made up an entirely different story.

Since a member of CPU’s own executive committee blew the whistle on its bigoted actions, the group’s attempt at a cover-up is all the more pathetic.

Perhaps these students will, by the time they graduate, have a better appreciation for the values their organization, and their university, espouse.