(Ezekiel Loseke, Headline USA) The Satanic Temple is suing Idaho and Indiana over their infanticide bans.
The Salem, Massachusetts-based sect claimed that child sacrifice is protected under the First Amendment and that newly imposed pro-life laws “violate the religious rights of people in those states,” Axios reported.
In the lawsuit, the Satanists argued that both states’ abortion bans deny the right of a mother to engage in the “Satanic Abortion Ritual.”
The temple further accused the state of “taking the property of involuntarily pregnant women” [presumably their unborn children] without just compensation, noting that people get paid thousands of dollars to be surrogates.”
The Supreme Court’s recent Dobbs decision, overturning the 50-year-old federal abortion mandate, has awoken “a sleeping giant among women politically and have stirred up a hornets’ nest of legal issues,” said James MacNaughton, an attorney representing the Satanists.
“Gorsuch, you want a national debate on abortion? Congratulations, you have one,” he added, addressing Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch by name.
As uncomfortable as child sacrifice as a religious right may be, Indiana was not concerned about the lawsuit.
A spokesperson for Todd Rokita, Indiana’s attorney general, told the Indiana Star that so-called abortion rights were determined by the high court to have been improperly conferred under the prior Roe v. Wade precedent.
“This new lawsuit merely offers weaker arguments for the same discredited right,” he said.
Nonetheless, Satanists have been emboldened in the political sphere of late:
- Last month Joe Biden appointed a Satanist as his Monkey Pox Czar.
- The same satanic organization announced it intended to sue on these grounds in May.
- In June, the Satanic Temple was listed as an official partner of Boise’s Pride Parade.
- In May, Satanists demanded that their flag be flown over Boston’s City Hall.
- In April, a Pennsylvania elementary school was sued by a satanic group for not allowing an after-school program.
