Satanists from New York recently announced that they would get together with a national atheist group to hand out controversial literature and activity books to public school students in Florida. The study materials that the Satanists plan to distribute include pamphlets about The Satanic Temple’s tenets, practices and philosophies, a Satanic-themed activity book as well as information about students’ legal right to practice Satanism in schools.
Both The Satanic Temple, an organization that facilitates the mobilization and communication of politically aware Satanists, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), a secular activist group, agree that religious materials should not be popularized in public schools. Now, both organizations plan to combat the practice by handing out literature related to their own ideologies at the same schools.
“If a public school board is going to allow religious pamphlets and full Bibles to be distributed to students … we think the responsible thing to do is to ensure that these students are given access to a variety of differing religious opinions,” Satanic Temple spokesman Lucien Greaves said in a statement, “as opposed to standing idly by while one religious voice dominates the discourse and delivers propaganda to youth.”
Besides handing out satanic literature and encouraging students to draw inverted pentagrams through fun activities in the books, the Satanic Temple also urges students to visit the organization’s website for more information about Satanism.
Even though some parents are likely to protest the circulation of such material in public schools, revised district policies now allow for such distribution to take place, following a legal battle with a local affiliate of FFRF. Last year, Orange County Public Schools was sued by the Central Florida Freethought Community after the former refused the latter permission to hand out non-religious literature to its students, despite allowing a local Christian group to hand out religious reading material to them. The lawsuit, which was dismissed in July of this year, compelled the district to grant permission to the atheist group so they too could distribute non-religious material like their religious counterparts.
FFRF attorney Andrew Seidel said that the Satanist materials have to be allowed in schools unless the current open policy is discontinued.
“They have no ability to keep out the Satanists and the literature they want to distribute unless they close the forum altogether,” he said.
The Satanic Temple has not said when it will begin distributing its literature and reading material to students but the school district clarified earlier this week that it had not received any official notice from the organization seeking permission to distribute Satanic literature. It should be noted that The Satanic Temple does not believe in the devil – instead, the organization advocates religious tolerance and pluralism.
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