Lawyer: School district must allow after-school Satan club
Sep 22, 2016, 11:30 AM | Updated: 12:04 pm
Lilith Starr and the Satanic Temple of Seattle could get their wish thanks to a lawyer hired by the Mount Vernon School District.
The lawyer advised officials to allow the Satanic Temple of Seattle to start an after-school program at one of their elementary schools.
The Skagit Valley Herald reports attorney Duncan Fobes said if the district were to deny the application, they would face costly litigation which would not end in their favor.
Fobes said the district was one of nine throughout the country, including Mount Vernon’s Centennial Elementary School, to receive such applications.
The Satanic Temple has been targeting schools that have a Good News Bible Club. Satanic Temple of Seattle spokesman Tarkus Claypool said a parent brought the bible club to their attention over concerns the club was teaching children to evangelize to other children.
Claypool said their curriculum teaches children logic, self-empowerment, and reasoning and they don’t worship a deity.
“We’re just concerned that if there is only one club, kids will confuse the teacher in that club with a teacher in the school,” Starr previously told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson. “And they’ll think the school is teaching religion.”
According to Starr, the clubs try to teach children that they are destined for hell; a message the clubs want the children to carry to classmates and parents.
Starr said that her group primarily believes that no religious organizations should ever be present at public schools. But because the Christian clubs are targeting them, they want to make sure there is a diverse presence.
“First of all, we believe that religion shouldn’t be in public schools at all,” Starr said. “Since it is now allowed with Good News Clubs in 5 percent of schools, we’d like to provide an alternative. There shouldn’t just be one religious voice represented.”
As one lawyer suggests a school allow a Satanic Temple-sponsored club to operate, a former assistant football coach continues his fight in the courts.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton declined to issue a preliminary injunction requested by former Bremerton High School football coach Joe Kennedy. Kennedy is suing the district, saying that officials violated his religious rights after firing him when he continued to pray on the field after football games.
The district has argued that students could feel coerced to participate in religious activity when they see coaches lead or endorse it.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
