The Satan Temple sent out their “year in review” and because they *say* they’re showing people where their money is going, expect to see some TSTers repeat this as if it’s actually true
Can you guess what TST really did tho?
manage.kmail-lists.com/subscriptions/…
All right, let's go thru this and count how much absolute horseshit The Satanic Temple tried to shovel on their FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND MEMBERS (erm, email newsletter subscribers)
the.satanic.wiki/images/c/c6/20…
This is actually the heading for the next section.
The Satanic Temple "religiously objects" to abortion access restrictions.
As we've pointed out before, this is just their Michael Scott routine: "I declare bankruptcy!" It is not really an accomplishment.
The Satanic Temple's Judy Doe abortion rights case was dismissed at the federal district court level; it was upheld on appeal; the Supreme Court didn't bother to hear it, leaving the appeal upheld
In no way was this a victory.
Also, it was not this year.
It's not close! SCOTUS declined the case on Nov. 23, 2020
-supremecourt.gov/orders/courtor…
-courtlistener.com/docket/6322005…
Why would TST lie about something so provable?
In what universe does TST think their own supporters are this gullible or lazy that no one would bother to check?
Why???
Moving on to the Ohio fetal remains law
The Satanic Temple "has noted that we object"—again this is nothing
At least they actually did this one in January 2021. But they ANNOUNCED in 2019 for Indiana and 2016 for Texas, too.
Q: To what end? (A: TST got attention & money)
Speaking of that, let's look at The Satanic Temple's Ann Doe abortion case in Texas.
Again, at least this fucking happened this year. But "filing a lawsuit" means shit & all, and you wouldn't think "working its way thru the courts" could *be* a lie, but it is
The case is stayed
TST's Ann Doe case had half the claims in the complaint dismissed already, including the state Religious Freedom Restoration Act claim, and has to travel thru the Fifth Circuit even if it were to win but also got put on hold till June 2022
Not much movin'
Onto The Satanic Temple wanting to take a ruling on Indigenous peyote use to become a church pharmacy for mifepristone
This got *a ton* of press coverage and netted TST somewhere in the ballpark of $200K, but it was them sending a letter making a request for a very bad idea
Meanwhile, the @ACLU actually did years of work to get the Biden regime to make a "permanent" change to access to a safe abortion pill containing mifepristone & misoprostol
Much less attention; consequently, prolly much less money
Remember: these are The Satanic Temple's *accomplishments* we're supposed to be learning about in this end-of-year newsletter.
We expect a little bit of padding and best-spin on events. But also: is this the best they got?
Is that why TST pretended they lost Judy Doe in 2021?
Onto The Satanic Temple's "Religious Reproductive Rights" billboards
This started in December 2020, and the "many hurdles" was one billboard company said, "Uh, what evidence do you have y'all can actually avert state restrictions on abortion?"
So TST sued them.
You can read all about that lawsuit against Lamar Advertising (@LamarOOH) in this thread:
The Satanic Temple withdrew the suit in February 2021 likely b/c they had no path to victory arguing, "If you don't run our billboard designs, that's discrimination"
It is enraging to think that The Satanic Temple put up billboards claiming TST has the power to avert state restrictions on abortion, and then run Facebook ads with the same claims, all while knowing TST's arguments have failed in every court
Moving on to The Satanic Temple's claim "TST stands ready to assist" any member who needs an abortion so long as it's <24 weeks using their "Satanic abortion ritual"
Keep in mind all the demonstrably false things above when you hear TST's explanation of this is "just trust us"
We've had a guy claim to be a TST clinic escort but he also pays out of his own pocket?
He also has no idea where money to The Satanic Temple is going b/c he says it's Lucien Greaves' religion and Greaves' money to do with as he pleases
Either the social media comment has been deleted or (more likely) we just can't find our way back to it since we failed to save a link, but we believe the supposed head of The Satanic Temple's RRR program in Texas literally claimed "it's too confidential for us to get specific"
Anyway, an intrepid reporter might try to pin down The Satanic Temple on some specificity about what exactly they're doing, how they're doing it, and how much TST money has been spent on the program, if any (bonus points: *which* TST org's money)
Moving on to The Satanic Temple's Religious Reproductive Rights Rally
As far as we know there were no big Delta-Covid outbreaks from this event, so the main issue was that originally, it was to celebrate $50K raised in 2019, then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It definitely happened. We don't know where the original money or afterparty money went, including to which corporation associated with The Satanic Temple received it
Also seriously question the "500" attendees number, but there's still more to go
Moving on to three "Cevin Soling hates public schools" listings
The Satanic Temple did nothing in any of these, and barely pretends to claim to.
As "Malcolm Jarry", Soling took a call from NPR, but TST has never accomplished anything i/r/t corporal punishment in 8 years
We've written about The Satanic Temple's After School Satan (ASS) Clubs before, but closely examine what they're saying here
Gonna bet they have a p expansive definition of "meets at" in terms of present tense, and "working to re-open" is likewise fairly generous
Ope, sorry, two more of these.
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The "Fuck The Mahanoy School Board" thing seems like a shameless cash grab b/c The Satanic Temple did absolutely nothing in that case; the scholarship thing is just Cevin Soling being Cevin Soling
Don't have bad things to say about The Satanic Temple's Grey Faction. It's not an area of focus for us, but it would be kind of nice to find out someday how exactly they're officially structured within TST umbrella organization
This is a Lucien Greaves thing, tho
There's some funny stuff going on with The Satanic Temple's "Satanic Ministry and Ordination Program"
But like, for us at this point it's "funny ha-ha" not "funny strange" b/c it makes complete sense based on our understanding of TST's goals and mission
We heard tell that The Satanic Temple's "ritual" involved them having to wait across the street b/c of the counter protestors
A shame since some fans of @QueerSatanic sent in a heartwarming photo
So this did actually happen, just not to any end or glory
Supposedly re-naming the Bladensburg Peace Cross as a “Satanic Peace Cross” is definitely not the *worst* sort of thing The Satanic Temple does
But, military veneration stands in marked contrast to how TST talks about antifascists or other protesters
Whew! Moving on: back to The Satanic Temple's description of its own lawsuits (& SatanCon)
Let's do Boston first b/c it's less complicated and involves less lying
TST has a case that has not been dismissed yet, but they're being actively obnoxious so far
The Satanic Temple is trying to succeed in Boston where it failed in Scottsdale, but this is an absolutely baffling description of Scottsdale's case
TST lost in federal district court in February *2020*, and the judge ruled in favor of the city completely
courtlistener.com/docket/6726362…
Then in MAY 2021, The Satanic Temple lost their appeal to the Ninth Circuit of the Scottsdale case, essentially on the fact that TST did a bad job at district court and didn't know what they were still allowed to argue on appeal
cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/memo…
Again: is this the email scammer trick? Is The Satanic Temple trying to weed out people who give a shit about basic facts like who actually won a court case or when it happened so they won't "poison" local groups and online forums with inconvenient questions?
It's really wild.
Last, this is part of the way The Satanic Temple handles losing, which is petulantly (and apparently claiming victory anyway)
But SatanCon hasn't happened yet, so there isn't a ton to say
Moving on, and we're in the home stretch.
Here, only The Satanic Temple Sober Faction is new in terms of what's already been covered in the thread
And the Sober Faction sounds pretty great, right? Non "Alcoholics Anonymous"-style sobriety help. It also prolly has 3500 for real
The problem is how it came to exist.
See, The Satanic Temple has a tendency to do something called "enclosing the commons"
Communities do a bunch of work that exists in common, and once it's profitable, bam, TST moves in
The group already existed as Satanic Sober Faction, had developed a godless program, but used the seven tenets
The difference is, The Satanic Temple couldn't sell T-shirts of it.
(If you were wondering, yes, this would be a for-profit corp sale)
The Satanic Temple has pillaged Satanism & esotericism already and cordoned off things they can claim with lawsuits (e.g. Baphomet) and the threat of lawsuits, or as part of SLAPP suits
Same here: common work is seized to become private profit
One more, then we'll move on.
When these groups get pulled into The Satanic Temple more officially, they don't just privatize all of the value from the community (what good is a group if no one is there?), they also expel people and limit criticism of TST and its leaders
Moving on: "Salem Art Gallery" is the biz name of 64 Bridge LLC, a for-profit corp owned solely by Cevin Soling
64 Bridge LLC is officially what owns the HQ of all of The Satanic Temple's primary corporations
Note: the Baphomet was originally crowdfunded
medium.com/@queersatanic/…
The Satanic Temple called this "a report showing how your donations are being used to secure TST members' religious freedom"
They show no budget breakdown, have no actual victories to point to. and they actively lie REPEATEDLY about verifiable facts.
But also the negative space
In all of this, they certainly don't tell their members about their oh-so righteous legal battle against four former members of the Washington State chapter
If they have nothing to hide, why not tell everyone about it?
The Satanic Temple doesn't tell people about getting their asses stomped in Belle Plaine
Apparently, getting sanctioned and losing two cases at once it's too rough a turd even for *this* TST newsletter writer to manage to polish
You don't see anything about @LucienGreaves finally getting to OWN his famous adversary @JasonRapert in Cave v. Thurston, which is getting to close to hitting four years of litigation
Maybe b/c that's extremely EXPENSIVE as well as "fucking embarrassing"
medium.com/@queersatanic/…
@LucienGreaves @jasonrapert The Satanic Temple is—with this newsletter—telling their supporters, "We need you to continue giving us time, money, and resources, and please, please do not actually look any close at what we're doing with those things."
And the thing is, yeah, there's a buncha people who will
if you learned something new from this thread, please tip your Tweeter, or just get a sticker
we hope our case will get dismissed again soon & The Satanic Temple will not re-file
-cash.app/$QueerSatanists
-paypal.com/paypalme/queer…
-redbubble.com/people/queersa…
-gofundme.com/f/legal-fund-f…
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