Longtime followers of TST’s legal history will know The Satanic 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 religion that runs around touting the “freedom to offend” 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.”
In short, The Satanic Temple is:
- ineffective at what it promises to do
- opaque in regards to its finances
- structured to be internally authoritarian with unaccountable leadership; and
- its two owners have troubling interests that show up in TST's work repeatedly
Usually—and this is not a joke—when people learn more about The Satanic Temple's owners Doug Misicko ("Lucien Greaves") and Cevin Soling ("Malcolm Jarry"), and their business practices, the unprompted comparison folks make is "Scientology"
watch later tonite when Doug Misicko gets off of (on?) Snapchat, a new reply guy with 0 followers will show up but COINCIDENTALLY have all of the same concerns as @LucienGreaves fussing at us or some Church of Satan people or whatever
there is an awful lot to object to about The Satanic Temple, sure
but you'd be right to bet the good people of Fort Dodge, Iowa, did not care about any of those things
to be clear, since it wasn't in the tweet last nite, the local government isn't doing anything untoward here by appointing a former council member to fill a recent vacancy
if Andy Fritz is still Catholic, maybe no one even shows up to this meeting