ONGOING

Boston City Council: TST has filed First Amendment violation allegations against the Boston City Council for ignoring requests in October for TST members to lead invocations for public meetings. In common practice, all public meetings begin with an invocation, generally led by a Christian prayer. Participation requests from TST co-founder Malcolm Jarry were met with the suggestion that invocation speakers are not elected by volunteer request but rather are appointed by individual council members. Jarry notes that such “preferential treatment” is the very definition of discrimination. TST has reached out to the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) to investigate. Updates in this case will be announced.

Arkansas: The legal battle in Arkansas, ensuing over Senator Jason Rapert’s demand that his Ten Commandments monument remains to be the only religious representation on the State Capitol grounds, has remained ongoing through 2019, which lead to his heated deposition in September. It will no doubt reach conclusion in 2020. You know updates will be forthcoming from us on this matter, as they have been throughout this ordeal.

Belle Plane, Minnesota: In April, The Satanic Temple announced that we will be filing suit against the city of Belle Plaine, Minnesota for religious discrimination after city officials shut down a public forum entirely in an advertised “free-speech zone”. The Satanic Temple had been permitted to erect a monument in this area alongside a Christian display in 2017, to which protests erupted around its placement. While TST fully respects the right to public protest, we feel the result should never be to deprive others of their civil liberties. Our case insists that Belle Plaine city officials committed a breach of contract by nullifying its permit and violating the First Amendment's incorporation of the freedom of religion by placing a “substantial burden upon the religious exercise” of Satanism and by denying the Temple access to a public space, which had previously been open to a Christian display. In the meantime, one can view our Satanic monument to veterans at our HQ and art gallery in Salem, MA.

Scottsdale, Arizona: Since 2016, members of The Satanic Temple Arizona have been denied the Constitutional right to deliver an invocation before city council meetings in Scottsdale, Arizona alongside other religious representations permitted to do so. In January of 2020, this case moves on to Federal Court, where a landmark decision will be made! This will be major news early-on going into 2020, stay tuned…

Missouri State Supreme Court Ruling & Appeal: In Spring of 2019, The Satanic Temple announced that we would be appealing the Missouri Supreme Court’s February ruling that asserts the State’s informed consent laws did not violate the religious freedoms of our member, Mary Doe, who sought an abortion at a Planned Parenthood in St. Louis in 2015.

The Satanic Temple’s appeal focuses on the policies and procedures of the State which dictates a personal theory of when life begins for its residents. In place of what should be a personal sentiment, the State employs its own two-part theory that the life of each human being begins at conception and that “abortion will terminate the life of a separate, unique, living human.”

We assert that it was not taken into account that a ruling handed down by the U.S. Eight Circuit Court of Appeals in 1989 (Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U.S. 490) explicitly states that the life of each human being begins at conception is “an impermissible state adoption of a theory when life begins.” We feel that whether the patient is forced to read the material or not, its required distribution alone is a violation of Doe’s rights under the U.S. Constitution's Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses.