July 25, 2022
Today is a good day for The Satanic Temple to release its finances
Next, beginning at about 0:41, you claim that TST is “suing former members to make them be quiet about the stuff they experienced while in the Temple.”
You may notice that The Satanic Temple and Matt Kezhaya often demand that their version of events is the only correct one.
This is why they keep repeating themselves and making threats about stuff they’ve lost in court, but also why they keep failing in those very courts where, unlike the power imbalances inside their org, TST does not have a monopoly on power.
See: the federal judge’s Order on our Motion to Dismiss from February 2021.
Defendants argue that these statements are not actionable. The defamation claim, they say, is barred by the First Amendment because resolving the claim would “require the Court or jury to delve into the tenets and beliefs of The Satanic Temple to determine whether or to what extent The Satanic Temple’s practices or beliefs are in line with or oppose [those ideologies or affiliations].” …
The Court agrees with Defendants. The doctrine of ecclesiastical abstention applies. The Court may not resolve the defamation claim without delving into doctrinal matters. To determine whether Defendants’ statements were defamatory, the Court or jury must inevitably determine that the statements were false. … That would require the Court or jury to define the beliefs held by The Satanic Temple and to determine that ableism, misogyny, racism, fascism, and transphobia fall outside those beliefs. That the Court cannot do without violating the First Amendment. …
Because this claim could not be cured by additional allegations, the Court DISMISSES it with prejudice.
It’s also just fair to call what they’re doing to us a SLAPP suit.
The Satanic Temple lost on the defamation accusations because you get to criticize religions, which they claim to be. So they’re essentially saying, “Please set aside the First Amendment for our sake.
For what it’s worth, they would have lost anyway (as usual) since “provably-false” never seems to involve them actually proving false statements, just asserting it and bullying people.
Bonus: see Newsweek answering The Satanic Temple’s libel accusations, a filing which is very thorough and likely to succeed given TST’s status as a famous, public religion, despite the Temple claiming there and only there to be a private figure.
But specifically in regards to whether it’s a SLAPP, Matt “u/stormsmcgee” Kezhaya did quite kindly admit outright that he hopes costs from The Satanic Temple’s lawsuit “squeezes every last penny from you living corpses” and he used federal statutes to “maximize TST’s damages” and “collect attorney’s fees”, again on Reddit.com.
![stormsmcgee[S] 9 points 18 hours ago
At this stage of proceedings, it is very normal for the parties to go back and forth about what issues will be litigated. Plaintiffs always want to have as many options available because who is to say how the facts will shake out. Defendants always want to constrain the plaintiff's choices for the same reason. Litigation is zero-sum. If Plaintiff wants something, that is generally bad for Defendant. And vice versa.
At the end of the day, TST is suing QS because QS stole TST's facebook page. The people we are suing publicly bragged that they "stole" the page. I wanted some federal statutes to apply because that would maximize TST's damages, would keep us in Federal court (as opposed to State court), and provided the option to collect attorney's fees for having to litigate this. They have a diametrically opposite incentive. The Court ultimately agreed with them as to the Federal claims. The state claims survive. Maybe I overcomplicated things by bringing up the Federal issues, or maybe the Judge decided wrong. That will be for the Ninth Circuit to decide.](https://i0.wp.com/queersatanic.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/image-31.png?resize=801%2C377&ssl=1)
Remember, it’s The Satanic Temple who made their “fundamental tenets” include “THE FREEDOM TO OFFEND”.
It’s Doug “Lucien Greaves” Misicko who made the official stance of TST to be on the side of the FREE SPEECH rights of the alt-right, including standing in solidarity with lit’ral neo-Nazis.
When it comes to The Satanic Temple, there’s always more, and it’s always worse, and TST has done more awful shit than The Satanic HouseWife could ever hope to broach in a few minutes on TikTok.
By the way, if this is the first you’re hearing all this, our condolences.
The Satanic HouseWife is a relatively poor woman with a child, and The Satanic Temple is much larger with much greater resources to draw upon in terms of their fundraising, their organizational riches — that may involve (presumably volunteer) online harassment — and the owners’ substantial personal wealth, if needed.
We have stood tall for more than two years defending ourselves while The Satanic Temple has put us and those around us through living hell.
It’s not fun. This is not a fun time.
People see what TST is willing to do about someone talking about sexual assault in their org and see what they’ve done to us, and many have decided to stay silent.
It’s understandable, but if we go down, y’all have to keep talking about this stuff, sharing this stuff. Keep getting bigger content creators to pay attention to them and inform people. Push back against the hope grift.
The fight has to go on, even when we can’t keep fighting.
It has to.
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The Satanic Temple's Boogeyman
Queer Satanic
TST sued us from April 2020 to September 2024, and we are still here.
[…] the Houston Press and QueerSatanic, a group of four Seattle-area Satanists that I also reported on, have to say.) Or do pioneering work on other meaty topics, such as religious persecution and clergy sex abuse, […]