TST started two new lawsuits in 2023, but they lost eight existing cases and seem to have completely abandoned two others
Yet again, the legal performance of The Satanic Temple was disappointing and incompetent at best, but just as likely the worse conclusion is true: it was a needless waste of much-needed resources by attention-seeking malefactors.
The Temple often utilizes overly credulous liberal media outlets to advertise itself off of the possibility that their litigation might one day prove effective. But in 2023, the bill came due on many of those promises, and the result was failure upon failure.
TST lost two major abortion-ban challenges (“Ann Doe I”, “Indiana”). TST lost an invocation challenge (“Boston”). TST lost a cluster of fruitless appeals for misbehavior in Belle Plaine (“Minnesota city monument case”). TST lost its Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation or “SLAPP” targeting former members (“Queer Satanic”) and had its SLAPP against Newsweek whittled down to a single libel claim. A lawsuit against a billboard company (“Lamar II”) concluded after the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars, apparently on the same terms as if the lawsuit hadn’t been filed at all. And two other lawsuits in Texas were seemingly abandoned with no further activity in more than a year (“Ann Doe II”, “the Satanic Housewife”).
Compare the below chart with the state of affairs in December 2022 to grasp at a glance just how badly 2023 went for The Satanic Temple in the most recent year. If it could go wrong, it did for TST in 2023.
Jump to
The Satanic Temple Inc. court cases
- v. the City of Chicago (Chicago invocation case)
- v. Jessica Snow (“the Satanic Housewife” TikTok libel case)
- v. Little (“Idaho abortion-ban challenge”)
- v. Rokita (“Indiana abortion-ban challenge”)
- v. Lamar Media Corporation (“Lamar II” billboard ad case)
- v. Newsweek Magazine LLC (news article libel case)
- v. Young et al (“Ann Doe II” Texas abortion-ban state challenge)
- v. Hellerstedt et al (“Ann Doe I” Texas abortion-ban federal challenge)
- v. Belle Plaine, City of (Minnesota city monument case)
- v. City of Boston (Boston invocation case)
United Federation of Churches LLC cases
- v. Johnson et al (“Queer Satanic” SLAPP suits and appeal)
- Cave et al v. Thurston (“Arkansas 10 Commandments challenge”)
Cases by others involving The Satanic Temple
- The Satanic Temple, Inc. v. Saucon Valley School District (“After School Satan club ban challenge”)
- Hunt v. Kenai Peninsula Borough (“Alaska city invocation challenge”)
For a more in-depth look at the specific attorneys involved in this failed litigation, see our article from earlier this year looking at Matthew Kezhaya and W. James MacNaughton.
Chart
The Satanic Temple Inc. court cases
The Satanic Temple, Inc., is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and Chapter 180 Religious Company.
Its registered agent is Douglas Misicko, who also serves as its president, treasurer, clerk, and director. Misicko also utilizes the pseudonyms “Doug Mesner” and “Lucien Greaves”. There are no other officers.
It was initially registered as “The Satanic Temple” before having its name changed to “The Satanic Temple, Inc.” on May 24, 2019. “The Satanic Temple, Inc.” was the original owner of the trademark “The Satanic Temple” due to a filing error.
It is distinct from for-profit corporation United Federation of Churches, LLC, which also does business as “The Satanic Temple.”
The Satanic Temple, Inc. was organized Nov. 14, 2017, in Salem, Massachusetts at 64 Bridge Street, a property shared with United Federation of Churches and several other corporations owned by Cevin Soling.
v. The City of Chicago – Ongoing
TST started this case this year, and so far they haven’t lost it.
The Satanic Temple Inc. and Adam Vavrick, an ordained minister of the Satanic Temple and a leader of TST’s Illinois congregation, sought to deliver an invocation before a Chicago City Council meeting. However, they were not invited after, TST claims, more than three years of asking to deliver an invocation and not being given an explanation for why they were not invited.
TST sued the city in federal court on May 3, 2023, alleging violations of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.
Notably, this case is being led by Chicago-based lawyer Adele D. Nicholas, rather than the Temple’s usual stable of incompetent clowns, so it’s possible this will be more successful than TST’s previous failed invocation cases against the cities of Boston and Scottsdale were.
That said, it faces some of the same fundamental challenges that cropped up in both of those cities.
A religious organization is not owed an invitation to deliver an invocation before a city council meeting because there are many more organizations that exist than there are months in the year to invite them. The problem TST runs into when it engages in litigation is that the reality of organization is more strictly analyzed, and embarrassing things tend to come out.
The tricks that work on cub reporters tend not to work on lawyers, and there’s a very good chance that if this cases progresses to the point of gathering evidence, the evidence gathered will be damaging to the Plaintiffs.
v. Jessica Snow – No Movement
TST started this case in 2022, and so far have done nothing beyond filing a complaint, including serving the Defendant.
The Satanic Temple has been suing Snow for “Business Disparagement” and “Defamation – Libel” over a video posted to TikTok on May 3, 2022.
We’ve shown in detail before how this is yet another bogus SLAPP action by the Temple, and this year Snow, “the Satanic Housewife”, also spoke to the blog Satanic Europe and the podcast Hail Satan to try to get the word out about her situation. However, since filing the lawsuit in November 2022, there has been absolutely no action in the Travis County civil case.
This is very good news for the Defendant, but it also goes to show how the whole point was just to try to intimidate a person critical of TST with little thought beyond that to what would happen next since even among TST loyalists, the reaction has been overwhelmingly negative.
v. Little – Ongoing
TST started this case in 2022, and so far they haven’t lost it.
This lawsuit against government officials of the state of Idaho is one of two nearly identical abortion challenges the Temple filed in 2022. Both argued that unspecified TST members who can become pregnant suffer financial harm by a hypothetical involuntary pregnancy curtailing their hypothetical desire to rent out their wombs for paid surrogacy.
The Satanic Temple amended their complaint late last year because they originally named Idaho Gov. Brad Little and state Attorney General Lawrence Wasden, but the governor had immunity and Wasden had lost the Republican primary to Raúl Labrador, so Labrador and Ada County prosecutor Jan M. Bennetts replaced the two men as named defendants.
Notably, the amended complaint to update and attempt to cure it of its deficiencies included the revelation that The Satanic Temple’s abortion clinic in New Mexico would launch in the future, coming several months prior to the official announcement. This was part of an argument that the Temple’s business interests were harmed by “a diversion of TST resources from other programs and the corresponding reduction of TST’s ability to promote the TST (sic) Tenets by other means.”
That indirect argument and claims that — were it not for this ban — TST might someday, somehow serve Idaho residents seeking an abortion was not sufficient to establish standing for Indiana, but Trump-appointed Federal District Court Judge David Nye only heard the oral arguments for the case Dec. 6, 2023, and had yet to issue a ruling by the end of the year.
v. Rokita – Failed and Appealed (Ongoing)
TST started this case in 2022, and they lost it in 2023.
This is the other of two almost identical lawsuits the Temple filed last year, but this abortion-ban challenge was filed against government officials in the state of Indiana.
We wrote in detail about the failures of this case, which the judge tossed out for its inability to first establish standing for a lawsuit because TST did not have a specific party to represent in the case who could be shown to be suffering some specific harm the court had the power to repair.
Again, that article went into much more detail, but the person who tossed that case was Federal District Court Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson, an Obama-appointee who worked on the staff of Indiana Democratic politician Evan Bayh.
There are very basic things any litigant needs to do in order to get even a sympathetic court to allow them to progress their lawsuit in the face of an expected preliminary motion to dismiss challenging it, and The Satanic Temple was incapable or unwilling of doing any of them.
v. Lamar Media Corporation – Dismissed (Unclear)
TST started this case in 2022, and it finished in 2023, but the exact circumstances of that were not made public.
The parties “resolved all issues” in the incomprehensibly one-sided dispute between The Satanic Temple and a billboard company, and TST’s attorney said the agreement terms were confidential.
Despite being accused by TST of anti-Satanist bias, the billboard company only ever refused to run a particular ad campaign for TST back in 2020 based on the Temple’s weird demand that the company’s let TST make provably false advertising claims about TST’s abortion ritual; in reality, the Satanic Temple has never helped someone circumvent state abortion restrictions.
While we’re unlikely to ever get the terms of the settlement released for independent review, this case was an astounding and clearly expensive comedy of errors full of self-inflicted wounds on the part of The Satanic Temple.
It was the second lawsuit TST brought against Lamar after TST gave up on a similar state court action in February 2021, but this one progressed far enough for TST to admit in filings they spent something like $200,000 between an $80,000 billboard in Arizona they bought, plus leasing the land it sits on for 18 years at $450 per month, and plus the costs of numerous sloppy filings as well as embarrassing admissions during the depositions of the lawsuit itself.
Q. When making this statement, was TST aware of any — I’m sorry — The Satanic Temple. Was The Satanic Temple aware of any situation in which a clinic exempted someone from an abortion-related requirement imposed by state law because of their Satanic beliefs in general?
TST co-owner Cevin Soling as “Malcolm Jarry” being deposed Feb. 2, 2023
A. No. But we feel that our position is perfectly in line with the law, and I find it impossible to see the law coming to any other conclusion than that this is a valid claim.
Q. When making this statement, was TST aware of any situation in which a court found that someone was exempt from an abortion requirement imposed by state law because they were participating in the Satanic abortion ritual?
A. No. This is — this is a first.
Q. And is The Satanic Temple aware of any situation in which a court has found that someone was exempt from an abortion requirement imposed by state law because of their Satanic beliefs in general?
A. Not — not to our awareness.
All of that to get the same deal from Lamar that Lamar offered TST for free back in fall 2020: “we will run other ads of yours — just not this one”.
LifeNews.com of all places seemed to confirm this when they reported on a new billboard in Arkansas promoting TST’s abortion clinic in New Mexico immediately after the lawsuit was dismissed.
Calling this result “unclear” is very generous because if a TST apologist can make an argument for what exactly the Temple won in all of this nearly four year odyssey, we’d love to hear it.
v. Newsweek Magazine LLC – Ongoing
TST started this case in 2022, and while most of it was dismissed in 2023, what little remains is ongoing as of the end of this year.
The Satanic Temple sued the magazine Newsweek and its reporter Julia Duin in 2022 in retaliation for Duin writing and Newsweek publishing a critical article about TST in 2021.
The article quoted us and other former members talking about how the Temple and its owners engage in abusive litigation against critics called SLAPPs — Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation.
You can only imagine how darkly funny it was to see TST move on to hitting Newsweek with a SLAPP of its own for talking about this.
And in March 2023, Federal District Court Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil, a Trump appointee, dismissed nearly everything in The Satanic Temple’s lawsuit.
While the whole thing decision is worth reading, one statement in particular stands out:
If Plaintiff did not want to be associated with the alt-right, the best course of action would be to avoid posing with alt-right media figures. The reporting of such an interaction (the occurrence of which Plaintiff does not dispute) is not defamatory merely because it will disappoint some of Plaintiff’s donors.
Simple as.
Somehow it seems only the Volokh Conspiracy blog for Reason.com took notice of this happening at the time, which is unfortunate because SLAPP suit against news orgs ought to be relevant to journalists in media even if theirs isn’t the specific outlet being sued.
Anyway, from TST’s perspective in terms of their claims surviving, we have:
Jurisdiction ❌ (This means reporter Julia Duin is out of this case as an individual Defendant.)
For Merits:
- Public figure ✅ (This means Newsweek did not disprove TST’s claim of being a private figure.)
Under the Defamation portion of the Merits:
- Financial Fraud ❌
- Sexual Misconduct (Deviancy) ❌
- Sexual Abuse ✅
- Misrepresenting Legal proceeding ❌
- Fraudulent Lawsuit ❌
- Defrauding the Public ❌
- Harassing Dissenters ❌
- Other “Terrible” Acts ❌
For all of the above, a “checkmark” just means TST’s claim that the court has been treating as true gets to survive a little longer. We have not gotten to the point where the court starts to look at what happens if the Temple’s claims are not assumed to be true.
What this left behind is still not particularly good for the Temple.
Newsweek anticipates deposing Lucien Greaves regarding his knowledge of any allegations of sexual abuse within The Satanic Temple, and others as revealed through discovery. Newsweek also plans to request the production of emails and office messaging from The Satanic Temple regarding knowledge of any allegations of sexual abuse within the organization. Newsweek will also seek discovery regarding The Satanic Temple’s reputation and alleged damages.
Letter — Document #31
The Satanic Temple’s issues with sexual harassment and abuse are much worse than any one person’s experience or incident. Of course, the fact that TST’s go-to response is to threaten lawsuits over talking about it tells you a lot in itself.
In August, the Temple’s lawyers began seeking to depose all of the members of Queer Satanic; that is, the four former members TST has been suing since April 2020.
Ultimately, only David Johnson and Nathan Sullivan had to schlep over to Mercer Island to get deposed by the Temple’s lawyers, and only narrowly about our knowledge of allegations of sexual harassment and abuse within the Temple since we (rightly) worried TST would use the deposition as an end-around to pursue their goals in their existing lawsuits against us.
Evaluated in the abstract on the standards of the litigation, the whole thing has been a failure so far.
But judged as a weapon to try to intimidate other critical former TST members and journalists by raising the specter of needing to prepare for an expensive legal defense or for doxing in retaliation, “Scientology for mall goths” might consider this lawsuit working as intended.
The Satanic Temple, Inc., et al v. Young et al
(“Ann Doe II”) – No Movement
TST started this case in 2022, and since June 2022, there has been no movement in the case.
This is a peculiar case even grading on the curve of The Satanic Temple’s litigation history.
The good news is that — unlike the Temple’s more recent Indiana and Idaho abortion ban challenges — TST does have an actual, specific pregnant person they can represent as having been harmed by abortion restrictions in the state of Texas, and this allows them to pass one of the first hurdles of establishing standing.
The bad news is that The Satanic Temple utilizes the same TST member from their federal abortion-ban lawsuit the year prior; the complaint states the “Ann Doe” had her last period in December 2020 and discovered she was pregnant in January 2021, seeking an abortion in February 2021. While this was partially sufficient for establishing standing for the federal lawsuit filed in February 2021, that would no longer be true a year later. At least as it comes to initiating a lawsuit, the court needs a specific and redressable harm; having been pregnant in the past doesn’t cut it in terms of overturning a law.
The most recent activity in this case was an “attorney vacation notification” on June 3, 2022, so TST has nothing at all to show for 2023 regarding their state-level challenge of the abortion ban in Texas, and that’s actually probably the best they could hope for.
The Satanic Temple, Inc. et al v. Hellerstedt et al
(“Ann Doe I”) – Failed
TST started this case in 2021, and they lost it in 2023 then (apparently) also abandoned their appeal.
This was the Temple’s first abortion-restriction challenge in a while, and it attempted to make use of religious liberty arguments, which liberal media always loves for its “dog-bites-man quality”. When SB8, the Texas “bounty bill”, was signed into law in September 2021, it led to a huge new influx of attention for TST and many breathless articles like “Why Satanists may be the last, best hope to save abortion rights in Texas.”
TST literally raised hundreds of thousands of dollars off of credulous articles just like this one that treated this specific lawsuit as the “one weird trick” that could save abortion rights for tens of millions of people.
Then the lawsuit was paused in December 2021 pending the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, and when the high court allowed Missouri’s abortion ban to go through in June 2022, the case was given a chance to start over. TST did, and it lost completely and utterly.
It is really difficult to convey just how much of a clusterfuck this case was on behalf of The Satanic Temple and its legal team.
Before we get there, though, let’s try to make some excuses for them.
As stated above, the Temple did the bare minimum here of identifying an actual TST member in Texas who was pregnant in 2021, who did not want to be, and who sought an abortion but faced barriers established by state law. TST called this person “Ann Doe” following in the previous examples of ultimately failed Missouri abortion-ban challenges representing involuntarily pregnant TST members “Mary Doe” and “Judy Doe”; so far, so good.
But you’ve heard us say before, “It’s a legal system, not a justice system.” There’s nothing fair about any of this. To successfully utilize legal challenges to effect policy change, you need to pick the right example to represent and you need the right facts for your case, but you also need to make sure you initiate your challenge in the right circumstances, draw the right judge, and have a reasonable path to success through the partisan supra-legislatures that judicial panels represent.
The rightwing movement in the United States has spent decades making their work much easier in the federal courts by investing in organs like the Federalist Society that will tip odds in the favor of their causes at the levels of district, appellate, and supreme courts. That’s not fair, but that’s how the game works if you elect to play it.
The Satanic Temple filed this case in the Southern District of Texas, and they drew a Trump appointee: Charles Eskridge III. There were some Clinton and Obama judges in the mix, but overall, Republican presidents nominated the vast majority of federal judges in this district. If you are going to blame judicial bias for your failures, as the Temple and its apologists are wont to do, this is very much a self-inflicted injury to your lawsuit’s chances.
Worse, Texas lies within the jurisdiction of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals; the Fifth Circuit is famously the most reactionary appellate court in the entire country. No matter how good your performance and draw at the district court, this reality looms ahead of you.
Finally, due to the Trump regime, the US Supreme Court holds a 6-3 Republican majority composition. Cases that might have succeeded in 2015 have no chance after 2020 purely because of who now sits on the high court.
So is successful litigation in this environment hard for ostensibly progressive causes? Yes, it is hard.
But none of that actually matters for The Satanic Temple, because it and its lawyers are so grossly incompetent, the venue they argue in is completely irrelevant.
Again, we covered a lot of this in more detail in our previous article from January and especially in our analysis of the dismissal in July.
But when Judge Eskridge officially admonished TST lawyer Matt Kezhaya and The Satanic Temple for their conduct in this case, he was not being an unreasonable MAGA justice. Eskridge pointed to two previous examples of Kezhaya being sanctioned in other jurisdictions (by Obama- and Biden-appointed federal judges) before moving on to review Kezhaya’s conduct in the present case.
This Court is similarly concerned about Attorney Kezhaya’s ability to practice in federal court in a professional and reasonable manner. For example, when initiating this action, he filed a motion for a temporary restraining order on February 5, 2021, with respect to an abortion scheduled the next day for Ann Doe—when his filings made clear that he could and should have sought such relief much earlier, if it was sincerely sought. See Dkts 2 (motion for TRO) & 9 (order denying relief). Following decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health, 142 S Ct 2228 (2022), he was granted leave to amend his complaint. Dkt 38. The amended complaint he filed is, charitably stated, cryptic. Dkt 39. He then filed a second motion for TRO containing negligible legal analysis, with six pages of the main analysis dedicated to presentation of what’s purported to be a five-act play. See Dkt 40 (motion). That motion itself was filed in a manner and on a schedule at odds with a briefing schedule on which Attorney Kezhaya had been consulted and to which he had agreed. See Dkt 42 (order). Worse still, he followed that motion up with an intemperate letter demanding instanter ruling, while threatening to seek mandamus relief from the Fifth Circuit. See Dkt 41. And most recently, as to a pending motion to dismiss, his response included a photograph apparently intended to shock the reader. See Dkt 52 at 6; see also Federal Rule of Evidence 403.
The “motion for TRO” or “Temporary Restraining Order” was denied at the federal district court level by Eskridge, and that ruling was appealed as “Satanic Temple v. TX Hlth and Human Service Commission“, which also was dismissed when it reached the Fifth Circuit.
You really have to read the actual documents filed by The Satanic Temple in this case to appreciate how unforgivably sloppy this was. A “play in five acts” consisting of a series Venn Diagrams, demanding a ruling within days after a year and a half of ongoing litigation, a filing consisting of nothing but testimonials from pseudonymous TST members — not pregnant TST members, just people willing to write something under a fake name in support of the Temple. The judge was not amused.
On July 3, 2023, the district court judge dismissed the case for its failure to state “factual allegations either to support Plaintiffs’ standing or to overcome [Texas Health and Human Services Commissioner Cecile Young’s] immunity to suit.” The judge felt the behavior of TST’s lawyers had been so woeful in its most recent amended complaint, he did not allow them the chance to amend the suit again but (strangely) the order did say the dismissal was without prejudice. In September 2023, the Fifth Circuit granted a motion by TST to dismiss TST’s appeal, referencing TST’s “desire to avail themselves of the right to replead.” However, so far, that seems to be the end of the case, and if the Temple were to restart it, it’s not obvious what their path forward would be.
For all of the attention that this hope-grift lawsuit got when people were at their most fretful and worried, its end got virtually no attention, and no one learned any lessons except maybe TST in again proving they didn’t have to actually do anything to get all of the attention and credit as if they had.
v. Belle Plaine, City of – Failed
TST started this case in 2019, then started the same case again in 2021, lost both in 2021 and got sanctioned for it, then in 2023, lost their appeal of the sanctioning and its fees, as well as losing the appeal for the main case(s).
If that short description seems confusing, fair enough, but basically The Satanic Temple is very bad at taking “no” for an answer or respecting decisions they don’t like, and when it comes to the courts, that tends to get them in even more trouble.
Here are all the relevant court cases relating to the Temple’s proposed veterans’ memorial monument in the city of Belle Plaine, Minn.
Federal District court
Appeal
Ostensibly the Temple’s monument was intended to stand in contrast to a Christian veterans’ monument endorsed by the city, but the fundraising campaign ended up getting more donation money than TST spent on the monument itself and which never left TST’s for-profit headquarters, where the Temple further sold admission tickets for the right to come inside and view it.
The Satanic Temple (and its attorneys) got in trouble with the federal district court judge, Obama-appointee Wilhelmina Wright, after they responded to Wright dismissing their claims and disallowing them from repleading the same issues in the first case by trying to replead the same issues in a new case before a different judge. Instead, Wright was handed back the new case and ruled against TST in September 2021, further applying almost $17,000 in penalties against TST lawyer Matt Kezhaya to recompense the city of Belle Plaine for having to pay the city’s lawyers for time spent dealing with a second, frivolous litigation TST should not have pursued.
Well, in August 2023, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court dismissal and also upheld the sanctions on Kezhaya.
(Sad trombone noises intensify.)
Taking a step back, by all rights, this whole situation should have been a rare victory for The Satanic Temple and its owners to point to.
There was an example of religious favoritism in a city that did not think through its policies; TST came in to challenge it, had a successful fundraising campaign, produced an actual, physical monument that could counter to Christian one already present; and the city was so put off by the idea of this coming to pass that they revoked their OK for the Christian monument in such a way to belatedly but undeniably re-establish secular principles.
But the Temple’s owners were too arrogant to just take a win, so they incompetently pursued a lawsuit that embarrassed them, revealed they paid one TST owner about a third of all the fundraiser revenue while another third disappeared entirely, got caught lying about doing this, and also got caught using fake names on official documents multiple times. Plus however much donor money was spent fruitlessly over four years pursuing a failed and unnecessary cluster of sloppy lawsuits.
It’s hard to pick a “worst” anything with The Satanic Temple, but given how easy this was for them to just quit while they were ahead yet electing to do the exact opposite until failures compounded on failures, this might just be it.
v. City of Boston – Failed and Appealed (Ongoing)
TST started this case in 2019, and they lost it in 2023.
Unlike most of the lawsuits on this list, this one was actually steadily covered by media outlets throughout its lifetime, particularly by Universal Hub.
For that reason, we’re just going to include the August 2023 article about TST’s appeal in full since it saves us some work concisely includes the whole saga.
The Satanic Temple said today it plans to appeal a federal judge’s decision on Monday to toss its suit against the City Council for not letting one of its practitioners start a council meeting with an invocation.
“Oh, hell: Satanists to appeal dismissal of their invocation suit against Boston City Council and all the other ways they say judges in the case did them wrong” by Adam Gaffin (Aug. 2, 2023)
But beyond US District Court Judge Angel Kelley’s ruling, the Salem-based organization says it plans to appeal – to the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston – a whole raft of rulings Kelley and another judge had earlier made in the case
They include Kelley’s refusal to take herself off the case because she was allegedly biased, her repeated rejections of the group’s attempts to force Michelle Wu to spend several hours in its Salem lair answering questions – after first sitting through a candle-lit Satanic Temple invocation – a ruling by a magistrate judge that the group had to pay Boston $8,228.25 for its lawyers’ time fending off those attempts and Kelley’s refusal to let the group immediately appeal one of her orders rejecting its attempt to “depose” Wu in Salem, in an order in which she tore into its lawyer’s “impermissible antics and abusive tactics.
The Satanic Temple sued the council in 2021, alleging that the way it chooses local clergy members to start its Wednesday meetings with invocations violated the First Amendment, and the Satanic Temple’s right to practice religion, because no councilors were willing to give any of its practitioners an invocation slot and the clergy members who got them were overwhelmingly Christian.
In her ruling this week, Kelley concluded nobody’s rights were being violated, that the council was not attempting to foist any particular religion on Boston residents, that councilors selected members of the clergy based on their community work in Boston, that non-Christian clergy and at least one layperson were also asked to give invocations and that the invocations did nothing to stop the Satanists from continuing to practice whatever it is they practice. The fact that councilors may not have been aware of either the Satanic Temple’s very existence, let alone its supposed charity drives, at least not until the group sued, is hardly proof of religious discrimination, she held.
The appeal is ongoing, but so far The Satanic Temple’s owners, lawyers, and advocates don’t have a better explanation for their failures than that TST is the victim of a conspiracy between the city of Boston and federal judiciary against them, so it’s hard to see how the First Circuit is likely to give them a better answer than the magistrate and district judges Kelley did at district court.
United Federation of Churches LLC court cases
United Federation of Churches, LLC, is a Domestic Limited Liability Company doing business as and holding the trademarks for The Satanic Temple and Lucien Greaves. A listing without the “LLC” also holds a trademark for “TST”.
It was organized Feb. 14, 2014, in Salem, Massachusetts at 64 Bridge Street, a property shared by several other corporations owned by Cevin Soling, including 64 Bridge LLC, which owns the location.
The registered agent of United Federation of Churches is Douglas Misicko, while its manager is Cevin Soling.
It is distinct from the tax-exempt church The Satanic Temple, Inc.
v. Johnson et al – Ongoing
TST started this case in 2020, and they lost it in 2023 but unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of the story.
Here’s the four cases involved (so far):
- v. Johnson AKA et al (“Queer Satanic II” – state court)
- v. Johnson et al (“Queer Satanic I” – federal court)
- TST appeal – 23-35060
- Defendants’ Cross Appeal – 23-35105 (withdrawn)
For more specifics, we have a whole article on that.
More broadly, this suit, its appeals, and re-filings are just a SLAPP suit against former members where all of the frivolous activity makes complete sense given that the goal of litigation is to force the Defendants to answer everything and exhaust our limited resources when our assailants can call upon so much more.
The first time a judge dismissed the federal district court case was in February 2021; TST re-filed the same year and the federal district court judge dismissed it again in January 2023; TST quickly appealed part of the case in federal court in January 2023 and re-filed a new case in Washington state court in April 2023. The state court appeal has been stayed awaiting the outcome of the federal court proceedings, which the Ninth Circuit has allowed to be revived on the issue of defamation back at federal district court.
If you were someone who cared about how The Satanic Temple’s owners are stewarding the collective resources provided to them by TST’s members and donors, a really good question would be demanding to know how much they’ve spent trying to hurt us over these past few years and what that has actually gained any of TST’s members or the people the Temple claims to be helping.
What does victory look like for The Satanic Temple here, and in what way does that advance the interests of Satanists more broadly?
Cave et al v. Thurston – Ongoing
TST joined this case as an Intervenor in 2018, and as of 2023 they haven’t lost yet.
The saga of the ACLU’s challenge to a 10 Commandments monument in Arkansas is about to hit year six without a trial, and much of that delay can be placed squarely at the feet of The Satanic Temple and its owner Doug “Lucien Greaves” Misicko, who seems to have pursued this originally out of an ongoing personal feud with former Arkansas State Sen. Jason Rapert.
November 2023 saw the 317th filing in the case which has gone on so long one of the original Plaintiffs died two years ago, and late last year, the ACLU found themselves on the same side as the Defendants in urging the court to “get on with it“.
This has also been an expensive, unnecessary, and counterproductive legal action for The Satanic Temple that the ACLU was more than capable of handling on its own and which further has produced some of the absolutely worst moments for Misicko and the Temple when he was put under deposition and questioned about things he couldn’t wriggle out of as if it were a news interview.
Much of the last two years have also involved the Temple dealing with information that Misicko’s former good friend and early TST collaborator Shane Bugbee dropped in a declaration, including old email correspondence that confirmed what had long been rumored: Misicko hadn’t actually changed that much from their Internet radio shows 10 years before.
In March 2023, the case also produced perhaps the best, most concise, and thoroughly documented summary of TST’s entire history up to that point as the state of Arkansas tried to untangle the “constellation of affiliate entities” that is the Temple:
The Satanic Temple. The intervenor labeled the “Satanic Temple” is a shifting constellation6 of entities created, owned, and run by Massachusetts residents Doug Misicko (a.k.a. Doug Mesner, a.k.a. Lucien Greaves) and Cevin Soling (a.k.a. Malcolm Jarry). Ex. 26, TST Dep., at 148-49, 183, 187, 228. These entities include the for-profit commercial enterprise United Federation of Churches, LLC, id. at 137, 157-59, 228; the fundraising nonprofit Reason Alliance, Ltd., id. at 160-69; the nonprofit The Satanic Temple, Inc., id. at 170-79; and another for-profit commercial enterprise, Cinephobia, LLC. Id. at 180-84. These disparate entities purport to be “all part of the larger—The Satanic Temple Organization.”7 Id. at 183.
TST is an antireligious group founded in 2013 with the goal of suppressing religious expression. Indeed, Intervenors’ Second Amended Complaint links to and cites an article that explains that TST cofounder Soling originally conceived TST as a way to undermine President George W. Bush’s White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. DE 89 at 4 ¶ 8; see Ex. 26, TST Dep., dep. ex. 55 at 4 (Mark Oppenheimer, “A Mischievous Thorn in the Side of Conservative Christianity,” New York Times, July 10, 2015). “There should be some kind of counter,” Soling thought, and he came up with “the idea of starting a faith-based organization that met all the Bush administration’s criteria for receiving funds, but was repugnant to them.” Id. He believed that “if a Satanic organization applied for funds . . . [i]t would sink the whole program.” Id.
Misicko and Soling met in 2012 and immediately “bonded over a shared distaste for organized religion and an inclination to fight back with mischief.” Ex. 26, TST Dep., dep. ex. 55 at 4. They formed TST and conceived what they acknowledge to be its first “campaign,” the so-called “Rally for Governor Rick Scott.” Id. at 77; see id. at 65-72; Ex. 45, Mock Scott Rally. TST “created this mock rally . . . where we were coming out to say how happy we were because now our Satanic children could pray to Satan in school” after Gov. Scott signed a bill authorizing students to give inspirational messages at school assemblies. Ex. 26, TST Dep., dep. ex. 55 at 4. A casting call was posted to the website Actor’s Access to find actors to play Satanic “minions” at the “rally.” Ex. 32, Misicko Dep., at 15. The second “campaign” was a so-called “pink mass” on top of the grave of a deceased woman, Ms. Catherine Johnson. Ex. 26, TST Dep., at 72-79. TST claimed that the contrived ritual “change[d] [Ms. Johnson’s] sexual orientation . . . in the afterlife.” Ex. 26, TST Dep., at 73 & dep. exs. 11, 13. It involved two (ostensibly) same-sex couples kissing over the top of the gravestone and Misicko placing his genitals on it. Id. at 72-79 & dep. ex. 11, 13. This stunt resulted in a warrant being issued for Misicko’s arrest for grave desecration. Id. at 78.
TST’s modus operandi is to use threats of litigation to suppress expression with religious significance. For example, shortly after the Supreme Court upheld the Town of Greece’s practice of prayer at town board meetings in Town of Greece, N.Y. v. Galloway, 572 U.S. 565 (2014), TST sought to deliver an invocation there in hopes of stopping the practice. Ex. 26, TST Dep., at 85-87 & dep. ex. 16. Indeed, TST frequently trolls municipalities that have such invocation practices. See id. at 198 (effort to give invocation in Scottsdale, Arizona, city council meeting); Satanic Temple v. City of Boston, No. 1:2021-cv-10102 (D. Mass.) (effort to give invocation in Boston city council meeting).
As a counter to the Supreme Court’s decision in Good News Club v. Milford Central School, 533 U.S. 98 (2001), TST announced that it would sponsor what it called an “After School Satan” (not coincidentally: “ASS”) Club in public schools—but only in schools where there was already a Good News Club (i.e., an evangelical-Christian after-school group). Ex. 26, TST Dep., at 90-100. Misicko admitted, “[W]e only offer our club in schools where the evangelical presence already exists.” Ex. 32, Misicko Dep., dep. ex. 12 at 5. Misicko created a disturbing video purportedly to promote the After School Satan Club, incorporating devil-worship tropes. Ex. 46, After School Satan Video; Ex. 26, TST Dep., at 94-100. TST wanted people who “freaked out” at the video to rethink giving permission to the Good News Club to meet in their school so they would not be forced to allow an After School Satan Club as well.8 Id. at 99-100.
This lawsuit is not TST’s first effort to remove a Ten Commandments monument by presenting a Baphomet monument as its foil. After Oklahoma installed a Ten Commandments monument on its Capitol grounds, the local ACLU sued to remove it. Prescott v. Okla. Capitol Pres. Comm’n, 2015 OK 54, 373 P.3d 1032 (Okla. Sup. Ct. 2015) (per curiam). Wanting to appear to be in on the action, TST courted media attention by applying to erect its Baphomet monument. See id. at 1045 n.8; Ex. 27, Okla. Records, at 7-16. TST “meticulously contrived a legal argument for the inclusion of the Baphomet on the Oklahoma Capitol grounds” that it believed “paralleled the 10 Commandments’ Bill in every way.” Ex. 32, Misicko Dep., at 132 & dep. ex. 12 at 13. It expressly sought to place the Baphomet monument only “where there is a pre-existing 10 Commandments monument.” Ex. 32, Misicko Dep., dep. ex. 12 at 4; Ex. 26, TST Dep., at 130. Therefore, when, in July 2015, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ordered the removal of the Ten Commandments monument on state-law grounds, see Prescott, 2015 OK 54, at ¶ 6, 373 P.3d at 1034, TST withdrew its request to place the Baphomet monument in Oklahoma and instead set its sights on Arkansas. Ex. 26, TST Dep., at 131.
6 TST has claimed that “‘[t]he Satanic Temple’ is an umbrella term for a religion which is given legal structure by a constellation of affiliate entities. There is no entity named ‘The Satanic Temple’ . . . .” DE 217 at 19.
7 It’s unclear which entity, if any, is Intervenor the “Satanic Temple.” TST has never filed a corporate disclosure statement under Rule 7.1 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Further, TST’s filings and responses to Defendant’s discovery requests provide wildly conflicting information. Compare DE 25-1 at 1 (identifying itself as “The Satanic Temple, LLC”), with DE 93-2 at 20 (“On information and belief, the full legal name of the organization is still United Federation of Churches, LLC.”), and with DE 93-4 at 8 (TST “is given corporate structure by ‘The Satanic Temple, Inc.’ which is a Massachusetts non-profit corporation.”); see also DE 24; DE 29; DE 124.
8 In 2015, TST members similarly sought to protest high-school football coach Joe Kennedy’s practice of praying after football games by requesting to conduct an invocation on the football field. See https://www.cbsnews.com/news/satanists-to-attend-high-school-game-overprayers-on-field/. Notably, the Supreme Court held that the school’s decision to punish Coach Kennedy for his prayer practice violated the Free Exercise Clause. Kennedy, 142 S. Ct. at 2422.
There is no reason that The Satanic Temple should ever have forced their way into this case, and there has been no benefit — to anyone! — since they did.
Cases by others involving TST
The Satanic Temple, Inc. v. Saucon Valley School District – Success
The ACLU started this case in 2023, and they settled it favorably in 2023, as well.
“Y’all are propagandists! You never talk about the good things The Satanic Temple does.”
Look, if you want to read pro-TST propaganda, you are already awash in it. That’s not our role.
And the ACLU was right to crow about their $200,000 settlement victory suing the Saucon Valley School District after it revoked its OK for TST to use district facilities for an After School Satan club. That is undeniably a win, and it’s their job to trumpet it.
But this was a win for the ACLU, not for The Satanic Temple.
As the numerous example have hopefully showed, the Temple’s own lawyers are not nearly so competent as to box their legal targets into a defeat, and TST’s owners aren’t likely to actually take a win when it’s offered to them.
Further, given the actual nature of The Satanic Temple, its history, and the performance of its key figures under deposition, even this case was likely to have unraveled had the school district decided to fight it and ask questions like, “Are the names these TST leaders are using to sign official documents their actual names?”
If you are inclined to be sympathetic to The Satanic Temple, this case is a perfect example of how important and vital TST is to challenging Christian Nationalism in the USA.
But, we are not inclined to be sympathetic to them, we find their efforts to be largely aiding their supposed opponents.
And we would point out that this case seemingly undercuts all of the excuses that The Satanic Temple makes for itself and its own legal failures. Rather than losing case after case because Satanists just have a raw deal when it come to dealing with biased judges, this reinforces that the fault seems to lie squarely with TST and its own behavior in courts.
The ACLU has plenty of problems but “incompetent legal representation” is not one of them. If TST never sued anyone, if its owners could shut the fuck up, go away, and just let serious, competent people handle lawsuits for them utilizing their members, maybe The Satanic Temple would not be such a consistently miserable failure in the courts.
Alas.
Hunt, Lance vs. Kenai Peninsula Borough AP – Update
Now, this almost isn’t fair because this is another ACLU case representing people in Alaska of multiple religious traditions who challenged policies a local government policy regarding invocations.
Started in 2016, the lawsuit ultimately was successful in a summary judgment, forcing a policy change.
We can’t blame The Satanic Temple here because it honestly seems that the national organization — Doug, Cevin, and their clown car of default lawyers — weren’t involved at all, and that their members in Alaska did it “the right way” by being one of many challenging the local invocations rules.
But we do think it shows how ultimately ineffectual this legal challenge strategy is at effecting positive change on its own, even when done competently as a legal matter.
“Hail Satan.”
That’s the line that closed out the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly’s final invocation of 2023, and the last invocation to be delivered by a member of the public. Effective Jan. 1, assembly invocations will be delivered exclusively by volunteer chaplains who serve the borough’s fire and emergency medical service areas, as designated by the assembly president.
…
Tuesday’s invocation marked a sort of full-circle moment for the borough.
[Satanic Temple Iris Fontana] was one of three plaintiffs represented by the American Civil Liberties Union in a 2017 lawsuit alleging that the borough’s invocation policy impaired their constitutional rights. That policy restricted who could deliver assembly invocations to religious associations with an “established presence” on the Kenai Peninsula.
The Alaska Superior Court in 2018 ruled against the borough, determining that the policy violated the Establishment Clause of the Alaska Constitution, which says that “No law shall be made respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” As a result, the borough was forced to pay $80,000 in legal fees to the ACLU and adopt a new invocation policy, which was in effect until last month.
This is at least the second time where the result of The Satanic Temple challenging local invocation practices has resulted in less not more secularism or religious plurality.
Once again, the Phoenix City Council has voted to have a prayer said at council meetings. However, the invocation would have to be given exclusively by chaplains for the police and fire departments.
A 7-2 vote Wednesday is the latest twist in a fiery debate that began after a group of Satanists were scheduled to give the opening prayer at a council meeting in February.
Rather than let followers of the Satanic Temple pray, the council voted last month to replace the invocation with a “moment of silent prayer and reflection.” City leaders said Phoenix would have faced a costly lawsuit if it kept holding a prayer and rejected the Satanist’s request to pray, as some council members advocated.
This is not a criticism of the fight itself. The fight and the friction involved in it is worthy, regardless of the ultimate outcome.
But it is a criticism of “one weird trick” appeals based on the grift that a proper legal argument is a solution to these problem. It isn’t.