Satanic Temple suing Boston City over Opening Prayer

Boston City Hall wiki image

Liberals vs conservatives, traditionalists vs progressives, democrats vs republicans, Catholic vs others are not the only culture wars being fought in the United States. Satanists are fighting another war. The Satanic Temple in Salem, Massachusetts has sued Boston after the city council declined to allow Satanists to deliver an invocation at the start of its meetings.

The group, which has lodged freedom of religion challenges nationwide, said that the council's policy for its opening prayer is discriminatory and unconstitutional because it does not permit prayer from every religious organisation that wishes to deliver one.

Satanists have asked to give the opening invocation on three occasions, and each time they were informed the council doesn't accept requests, the organisation said. Council policy allows each council member to invite a speaker of their choice to deliver the opening prayer before each meeting a few times a year, according to the organization.

Now, The Satanic Temple is arguing in a federal lawsuit that the temple's members should be allowed to give the opening prayer for the City Council, just as various other religions do to start off weekly meetings. It says that if the council allows various mainstream religions to speak, it's against the First Amendment to pick and choose who gets to give invocations.

Lucien Greaves, one of the co-founders of the temple, told the Boston Herald: "this should not be contextualized as Satanists against Christians. It's clearly the definition of discrimination when you allow functionaries of the state to decide what viewpoints are allowed in the public square. What we're asking for is exactly what religious liberty is and what it looks like."

The action also asks a federal judge to, "find that Boston's legislative prayer scheme is unconstitutional as an affront to the Establishment Clause, the Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses, and the Equal Protection Clause."

The Satanic Temple has brought actions against municipalities around the country. The group is now listed on the Inland Revenue Database of tax-exempt organisations under the classification of a "church or a convention or association of churches". The group says the designation will help in religious discrimination legal cases and allow it to pursue faith-based government grants.

The group advocates for a stricter separation of church and state. In recent years, satanic 'prayers' officially started off city council meetings in Florida, Alaska and Colorado. It also holds 'Black Masses'.

Maybe, President Biden will have more 'healing' to do than he had thought on inauguration day! The Mayor of Boston is Marty Walsh whom Biden has appointed to his cabinet.

Matt Moran is a writer and author based in Cork in the Republic of Ireland.