{"id":185871,"date":"2014-07-28T23:56:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-29T04:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/07\/28\/god-bless-the-satanists\/"},"modified":"2014-07-28T23:56:00","modified_gmt":"2014-07-29T04:56:00","slug":"god-bless-the-satanists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/07\/28\/god-bless-the-satanists\/","title":{"rendered":"God Bless the Satanists*"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/thesatanictemple.com\/\">Satanic Temple<\/a> has <a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/health\/2014\/07\/28\/3464769\/satanists-hobby-lobby-abortion\/\">demanded an exemption from state laws restricting abortion using the Hobby Lobby case as precedent<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">The Supreme Court\u2019s recent Hobby Lobby decision, which allowed some  for-profit companies to claim a religious exemption to Obamacare\u2019s  contraception mandate, has sparked a <a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/health\/2014\/06\/30\/3453598\/no-a-win-for-hobby-lobby-is-not-a-win-for-religion\/\">heated debate<\/a> over the definition of <a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/lgbt\/2014\/06\/27\/3454025\/religious-liberty-marriage-poll\/\">religious liberty<\/a> and its <a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/lgbt\/2014\/07\/21\/3462290\/executive-order-loophole\/\">role in modern society<\/a>. At this point, even a Satantic cult has decided to weigh in.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: blue;\"> <\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The Satanic Temple \u2014 a faith community that <a href=\"http:\/\/thesatanictemple.com\/about-us\/faq\/\">describes itself<\/a>  as facilitating \u201cthe communication and mobilization of politically  aware Satanists, secularists, and advocates for individual liberty\u201d \u2014  has <a href=\"http:\/\/thesatanictemple.com\/campaigns\/medical-info\/\">launched a new campaign<\/a>  seeking a religious exemption to certain anti-abortion laws that  attempt to dissuade women from ending a pregnancy. The group says they  have deeply held beliefs about bodily autonomy and scientific accuracy,  and those beliefs are violated by state-level \u201cinformed consent\u201d laws  that rely on misleading information about abortion risks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: blue;\"><span><\/span> <\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Now that the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby, the  Satanists point out, it strengthens their own quest to opt out of laws  related to women\u2019s health care that go against their religious liberty.  \u201cBecause of the respect the Court has given to religious beliefs, and  the fact that our our beliefs are based on best available knowledge, we  expect that our belief in the illegitimacy of state\u00ad mandated  \u2018informational\u2019 material is enough to exempt us, and those who hold our  beliefs, from having to receive them,\u201d a spokesperson for the  organization <a href=\"http:\/\/thesatanictemple.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/TSTPRWomensHealth1.pdf\">said in a statement<\/a>.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Truth be told, their case is actually far stronger than Hobby Lobby&#8217;s because they are objecting to forced state speech, which is <b>far<\/b> more significant from a constitutional perspective than an incidental requirement that a company provide full insurance coverage.<\/p>\n<p>Well played.<\/p>\n<p><sup>*<\/sup><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\">Yes, I know that will piss off Satanists, but what the hell!<\/span><sup>\u2020<\/sup><br \/><sup>\u2020<\/sup><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\">Oops.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Satanic Temple has demanded an exemption from state laws restricting abortion using the Hobby Lobby case as precedent: The Supreme Court\u2019s recent Hobby Lobby decision, which allowed some for-profit companies to claim a religious exemption to Obamacare\u2019s contraception mandate, has sparked a heated debate over the definition of religious liberty and its role in &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[962,1123,1097,1021,1015],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-40yrs","category-abortion","category-constitution","category-religion","category-weird"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185871"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185871\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}