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Longtime followers of #TheSatanicTemple’s legal history will know the Temple is, by design, a far greater threat to its own members than it has ever been interested in, or capable of, posing to the Christian Right.
It’s still *WILD* to see #TST explicitly confirming this in its own FAQ 
There’s a lot to unpack here, but let’s start with the obvious:
The Satanic Temple—the "bona fide" religion that runs around touting the “#FreedomToOffend”—is also putting a [metaphorical] gun on the table and saying, “It sure would be a shame if something happened to the people that offend us.”
If you’ve ever donated to The #SatanicTemple thinking it would be used to protect #AbortionRights, or even to keep the lights on, there’s a nonzero chance that money is actually being used to bankroll legal threats against people who criticize them on TikTok or Facebook
See this video of #TheSatanicHousewife, for example:
The idea #TheSatanicTemple actively commits resources to spy on and threaten people who criticize them on social media isn’t some conspiracy theory to be debunked with “the smallest amount of research” - it’s something that #TST flatly admitted in federal court they do.
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17042463/42/1/united-federation-of-churches-llc-v-johnson/
Also, the fact that this pseudonymous contractor’s statement (" #RachelChambliss ") shows up in a doomed 11th-hour briefing — in a demand that was legally and constitutionally *incapable* of being granted in The Satanic Temple's favor, but was filed anyway — is a bright neon sign as to what “further review” actually means for #TST.
This is a religion that is now suing Newsweek for **reporting on** our #SLAPP, by the way.
The Satanic Temple claimed, with no trace of irony, that it was #defamatory for #Newsweek to report anyone comparing TST to #Scientology.
The claim very predictably failed.
Again: #ScientologyForMallGoths
![After leaving, it was basically Scientology-lite,’ [a former member] told Newsweek in an email. ‘People were told not to talk to us. Members were trying to break up my relationship with my boyfriend. Several people were legally threatened. I know quite a few people who have refused to speak out at all because they fear legal action from [The Satanic Temple].’”
“Once she [a former member] became known as a dissenter, she said, members of [The Satanic Temple’s] national council threatened to out her to the Marine Corps, her employer, despite the Corps already being aware of [her] religious activities.”
Plaintiff argues that it never harassed dissenters in the described manner and that the statements are defamatory because they “invite[] the public to conclude that [The Satanic Temple] has a practice of harassing dissenters, which diminishes the likelihood of the public joining [The Satanic Temple] or donating to [The Satanic Temple].”](https://kolektiva.social/system/media_attachments/files/110/969/875/901/357/586/original/1a5e834e861b62e0.png "After leaving, it was basically Scientology-lite,’ [a former member] told Newsweek in an email. ‘People were told not to talk to us. Members were trying to break up my relationship with my boyfriend. Several people were legally threatened. I know quite a few people who have refused to speak out at all because they fear legal action from [The Satanic Temple].’”
“Once she [a former member] became known as a dissenter, she said, members of [The Satanic Temple’s] national council threatened to out her to the Marine Corps, her employer, despite the Corps already being aware of [her] religious activities.”
Plaintiff argues that it never harassed dissenters in the described manner and that the statements are defamatory because they “invite[] the public to conclude that [The Satanic Temple] has a practice of harassing dissenters, which diminishes the likelihood of the public joining [The Satanic Temple] or donating to [The Satanic Temple].”")
![Critically, these are not accusations or factual statements by Newsweek or Duin. They, as reflected with the bolded portions of the statements, are a recounting of what was previously said to Duin… an article is not defamatory if the article attributes the statement to a source; makes clear that it is a mere allegation; and prints a denial of the allegation...
Here, the Article expressly attributes the accusations to former members of The Satanic Temple. And, rather than adopt the accusations as its own, the Article supplied the other side of the story: “‘We get this litany of senseless disparaging claims against us that says we’re a religious group acting in a nefarious manner,’ [Greaves] said. ‘They call us a cult, which doesn’t stand up to scrutiny either… I don’t think there is anything incredibly cult-like in what we do.’” This sort of balanced reporting (which is in contrast to the treatment of the sexual abuse accusation discussed above) precludes a finding of defamation.](https://kolektiva.social/system/media_attachments/files/110/969/876/176/444/889/original/7ebf2741869e1b98.png "Critically, these are not accusations or factual statements by Newsweek or Duin. They, as reflected with the bolded portions of the statements, are a recounting of what was previously said to Duin… an article is not defamatory if the article attributes the statement to a source; makes clear that it is a mere allegation; and prints a denial of the allegation...
Here, the Article expressly attributes the accusations to former members of The Satanic Temple. And, rather than adopt the accusations as its own, the Article supplied the other side of the story: “‘We get this litany of senseless disparaging claims against us that says we’re a religious group acting in a nefarious manner,’ [Greaves] said. ‘They call us a cult, which doesn’t stand up to scrutiny either… I don’t think there is anything incredibly cult-like in what we do.’” This sort of balanced reporting (which is in contrast to the treatment of the sexual abuse accusation discussed above) precludes a finding of defamation.")
The Satanic Temple is very bad at law, and its business model leans heavily on the average supporter not knowing the extent to which TST insists on making its organizational and legal incompetence everyone else’s problem, while pretending the whole time that “at least they’re doing something!"
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/63011247/27/the-satanic-temple-inc-v-newsweek-magazine-llc/
And this is all without getting into how The Satanic Temple’s owners have used their religious nonprofit to fundraise for SLAPP suits — then also showed that money being funneled to a different, for-profit corp in the process.
(Massachusetts Attorney General, feel free to email or DM us any time.)
https://nitter.net/deus_ex_lasagna/status/1401806727108993026
Just incredibly brazen stuff here.
Nonprofit church: The Satanic Temple (Inc.)
vs.
For-profit corporation: United Federation of Churches LLC dba "The Satanic Temple"
The latter is suing us. The former was collecting money for it.
Both share the same owners (or their pseudonyms), HQ, and website.
We beat The Satanic Temple’s incompetent defamation claim in federal court because “criticizing someone’s religious/political beliefs” is protected speech.
That doesn’t change when it’s a church beseeching the state to punish speech that allegedly interferes with the church’s donation stream.
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17042463/20/united-federation-of-churches-llc-v-johnson/
#TheSatanicTemple failed that claim for many reasons.
But rather than take the L and spend its resources on actual threats to #humanRights, they’re appealing the dismissal, trying to establish precedent that would make it easier for churches to retaliate against critics.
The Satanic Temple is making a pro-theocracy argument to bind over 62 million people within the #NinthCircuit.
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/66805454/united-federation-of-churches-llc-v-david-johnson/
Or, more bluntly: #TST is staking its legitimacy as a #religion on the extent to which it can redefine the law to marginalize its own politically convenient targets in turn.
It’s not enough to simply say that The Satanic Temple is being "hypocritical", or has “good intentions” but can’t help blundering.
The court record shows TST actively committing resources to endangering #religiousFreedom further, and is willing to cause any amount of human shrapnel in the process.
There’s one other part of the FAQ worth highlighting:
“Some people join TST just to claim to be former members.”
It really encapsulates the ethos that we think makes The #SatanicTemple an immediate threat to people who get involved with #TST in the present day.
The Satanic Temple's statement is despicable for a couple reasons, not least for how much it echoes pro-cop and union-busting rhetoric portraying organizers and #whistleblowers as “third party interference” or “outside agitators” whose repression is justified in the pursuit of “pragmatism.”
But the more immediate problem is that it encourages members and lay supporters to prove their sincerity and commitment to #TheSatanicTemple by being on the lookout for “fake members,” who need only be identified by whether they have criticism about TST itself and are willing to speak up on it.
And what happens when that “negative commentary” is firsthand experience with #abuse, #exploitation, #harassment, or other harm within The Satanic Temple?
It's not like any organization is immune to it.
But here, your religious community is made of people who are primed to conflate all criticism of The Satanic Temple as potential #conspiracy to hurt TST, who look at lawsuits as handy ways to make critics disappear, and whose lawyer #MattKezhaya will outright admit to just making shit up to hurt you further.
I (Nathan) was a founding member of #TheSatanicTemple’s #WashingtonState chapter: there is photographic evidence of my involvement almost the entire time.
The idea I would voluntarily spend almost 6 years of my life as a sleeper agent building a community from nothing, just to destroy it, is delusional.
But that’s the kind of paranoid dogshit The Satanic Temple needs you to swallow in order to rationalize what TST actually does with its resources, or to rationalize *not* asking what it’s doing with those resources, or how it decides on those decisions to begin with.
In my time within The Satanic Temple, I reached out to and interviewed probably hundreds of people interested in #TST membership and local involvement.
Many, many people applied because they didn’t have any other community and wanted, if not activism, then refuge — especially after the 2016 election.
It is absolutely my experience that of those who stayed, the ones who spoke up the loudest about wanting to make The #SatanicTemple better than it was (better at serving its most vulnerable members) were the ones with the most to lose when TST failed — or — to live up to its own values.
Those people ultimately left because raising concerns through “the proper channels” was ignored, or they were purged from membership because their “negative commentary” was declared proof of a conspiracy to harm #TheSatanicTemple. (Or because they were friends with someone making that commentary.)
And that’s not unique. That has happened again, and is going to keep happening.
Why?
Think of the people who most resonate with The Temple's purported message about reason, compassion, and escaping #ChristianNationalism — the people who are compelled to seek TST membership in the first place.
There is a massive overlap between the kind of person who is most threatened by #ChristianNationalism, and the kind of person whom The Satanic Temple would declare it a matter of practicality to threaten into silence for having been disillusioned or victimized by TST locally.
And when you understand that #TheSatanicTemple is designed, on purpose, to only benefit two people — two dipshit Boomers with a history of reactionary, extractive politics — you understand why that overlap isn’t a coincidence, and why the culture that results is only going to hurt more people.
#TheSatanicTemple is a threat to the earnest pursuit of #ReligiousFreedom and #BodilyAutonomy everywhere, and it must be stopped.
@QueerSatanic Thanks for the thread. This is disappointing to hear as, despite me being a Christian, I had solidarity with the Temple as I thought they were one of the faiths looking out for queers like me, and that we shared a common enemy (Conservative Evangelical Christians).
@SapphicSelene There are a lot of great people within The Satanic Temple who legitimately are trying to do good work.
Unfortunately, they are wasting their energy and resources supporting a structure designed to extract their labor and funds for the benefit of the two owners #CevinSoling and #DougMisicko, who are just awful people.
https://queersatanic.com/lucien-greaves-and-the-satanic-temple-have-a-lot-to-answer-for/
https://queersatanic.com/cevin-soling-really-hates-public-schools/