Bloomberg Law
March 22, 2021, 10:30 AM

Satanists Go to Court Seeking Right to Pray at City Meetings

Erik Larson
Erik Larson
Bloomberg News

If thousands of Satanists have their way, the Arkansas state capital will soon host a mystical winged goat idol, not far from an existing three-ton monument to the Ten Commandments.

In Minnesota they’ve sued to erect a statue they call “overtly Satanic, but tastefully so.” In Arizona they want to bless a City Council meeting, as they say theists have done for years.

Across the country, the Satanic Temple, an IRS-recognized atheist church with some 300,000 devotees, is waging a legal battle it says is for religious liberty, using tactics that have proved effective for Christian groups. The church, which preaches both empathy and the “freedom to offend,” has filed at least ...

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