Part I
So, what actually happened?
This lawsuit involves a conflict between The Satanic Temple — specifically, its for-profit arm, the United Federation of Churches, LLC, which owns the trademarks to “The Satanic Temple,” “Lucien Greaves,” “SatanCon,” and others — on the one hand and four former members of TST’s Washington chapter (hereafter, TST-WA) on the other.
Chapters, more recently re-branded “congregations”, function largely autonomously with regards to their day-to-day activities, with the crucial exception that, at the time, every chapter had two figures who officially represented the national organization, and who presumably have a signed agreement with the United Federation of Churches, LLC outlining those obligations.
Those figures include a Chapter Head and at least one Media Liaison who acts as a co-head of sorts, and focuses specifically on managing media interactions at the local level on behalf of TST itself.
In TST-WA, the Chapter Head at the time was Leah Garvais a.k.a. “Siri Sanguine,” and the Media Liaison was Paul Case a.k.a. “Tarkus Claypool.”
The four former members, now the defendants collectively referred to as QueerSatanic or “QS,” are:
- David A. Johnson, a.k.a. “ADJ,” who joined TST-WA in May 2019;
- Leah Fishbaugh, who joined TST-WA in May 2019;
- Mickey Joshua Powell (named as Mickey Meehan in this lawsuit, a.k.a. “Lenore Calavera” during his membership in TST), who joined TST-WA in August 2018;
- Nathan Sullivan, who cofounded TST-WA in 2014 alongside Holly Blumenthal, a.k.a. “Lilith Starr,” and others.
TST-WA also utilizes a number of social media pages. The two of importance here are:
- The TST-WA Facebook page, a.k.a. “the Chapter page” for the context of this suit, and which was used for messages and posts from TST-WA to the general public. The Chapter page had about 17,000 followers at the time of the lawsuit filing, and was administrated in particular by Johnson.
- The “Evergreen Memes for Queer Satanic Fiends” Facebook page, a.k.a. “the Memes page” or “TST-WA Allies” for the context of this suit. Prior to November 2019, the Memes page had been used to promote a provisional subgroup of TST-WA called “South Sound Satanists: Friends of TST,” which catered to members centered in Tacoma and the southern Puget Sound region more broadly.
- The subgroup’s co-chapter head was expelled by Garvais and Case under dubious circumstances in November 2019, and the South Sound subgroup dissolved afterward; the page itself remained largely defunct until December 2019, with less than 500 followers. Defendants Powell and Johnson were made editors of the page in December 2019 by Garvais, and there was a joint agreement by the three of them to repurpose the South Sound Satanists page into a meme-focused page going forward. Powell and Johnson were promoted to administrators of the page by Garvais on Jan. 1, 2020.
- On Jan. 6, 2020, Garvais mistakenly renamed the page to “TST WA Allies,” confusing the page with a private Facebook group intended to be used as a discussion forum between members and general public who supported TST’s missions but did not want to become members themselves. At the same time, the URL for the old South Sound Satanists page was updated correctly to “facebook.com/QueerSatanicMemes,” but the page’s display name could not be readjusted to match per Facebook waiting periods between page display name changes.
- On March 14, 2020, the Meme page’s display name was changed to “Evergreen Memes for Queer Satanic Fiends,” its present-day name, in accordance with its intended purpose and URL.
The other two social media of note are a TST-WA Twitter profile (shared by many but updated primarily by Johnson), and a Gmail address (shared by Garvais, Case, and Fishbaugh).
As of March 2020, to facilitate greater member participation and self-management, TST-WA had been structured to include multiple committees organized for particular functions for the chapter.
At the time, there were approximately 20 people across seven volunteer committees; all four defendants were committee heads — notably, Johnson and Powell were heads of the committee dedicated to creating social media content, while Fishbaugh and Sullivan were heads of a committee related to organizing community-service events.
On March 12, 2020, Garvais sent out an email to all committee heads, announcing her product of an investigation into an internal complaint filed by another committee head.
On March 14, 2020, she announced this to the rest of the chapter at large.
Subject: Announcement from Siri
Greetings,
As some of you may already be aware, I have just recently made the decision to dissolve the Legion Guild and return to our original Strategy Council structure.
This was a grand experiment, however many of us in the trenches realize that the system, while promising, created more bureaucracy than we wanted and tied our hands when trying to accomplish our important goals. The current groups will remain as a pool for the creation of task forces to be led by members of the Strategy Council. My goal is to streamline our processes so we can get back to our focus – activism, community, and service.
I will be hand-selecting my new council of advisers over the next few weeks, and will make an announcement once my team is complete. Thank you for your patience as we transition back to familiar territory.
Ave Satanas,
Siri
This was not received well by the rest of the body, including those who weren’t committee (“guild”) leaders.
Can we get more information about why this decision was made?
I’m feeling disappointed by the lack of solicitation for input or communication about the challenges it has brought that prompted this decision.
I’m not particularly affected, as I personally wasn’t any guild leader and would just pop in to offer help in various ones, but I still think that communication is useful for group cohesion and transparency.
JeC
The internal complaint had been catalyzed by a then-current interpersonal conflict between that person and other committee heads but also discussed the background context of the dispute, which was TST-WA’s previous mistreatment of another member; this person had left the organization years prior as a result of TST-WA’s leadership mishandling months of unaddressed sexual harassment of that person by an older male member.
Garvais declared that the resolution of this dispute, and of that complaint, would be the immediate, unilateral dissolution of the committee/guild system and the reinstatement of the previous “Strategy Council” model, wherein TST-WA would be run specifically by herself, Case, and their handpicked people. Garvais also cited this complaint as the basis to conclude that the person who filed the complaint, as well as the four of us and some others, had formed a “coalition” to stir up drama, undermine TST, and harass leadership.
On March 14, 2020, when asked directly by Powell, Garvais admitted in an email that the four of us were included specifically because we had been CC’d on the aforementioned complaint.
Garvais also berated Powell specifically for a variety of grievances related to his performance as a committee head, including discussing “unrelated leftist politics on TST-affiliated social media,” and specifically mentioned a post on the Allies page discussing ableism from two days prior.
Greetings!
I’d really like to know what I did to undermine leadership? I was CCd on [redacted]’s email, but I did not read or sign off on it’s content. These are not my words, I thought I was being CCd as a witness to a complaint. You called me out specifically. You know this chapter and community is important to me. Please. What did I do wrong?
Sincerely,
Lenore
Hello Lenore,
Thank you for contacting me directly to fact-find versus speculating. I appreciate that very much.
You were included in the list of names because you were cc’d in Wylie’s complaint. Pure and simple. All of the members cc’d were named as I have to assume the lot of you A.) read the email itself, B.) are in agreement with the complaint by virtue of your silence, C.) And that if I was earnest in defending myself I would be pointing out how my actions were to the contrary. For example, “I wrote to Wylie appalled that they included me in their schemes. Here is a copy of that with their reply.”
Ergo logic dictates that you were involved.
I can accept your thinking you were only there to bear witness – that is fine if you feel the need to distance yourself from it now. But the dissolution of Legion does not mean that your membership in the chapter has ended – just your role in leadership.
Now, let me assure you that this one incident is not the sole reason for you not being included in my strategy council going forward. There have been many incidences over your tenure of failing to follow through on tasks you agreed to complete and also not informing the other legion members in a timely fashion so that they could help. Here is some examples for you to consider:
*Cannot be held accountable for your own guild (IC is aware of how badly the allies page is fucking up), isn’t worried about being labelled a criminal (and endorses negative and unrelated leftist politics on TST-affiliated social media). TST WA Allies should be about Satanism. On March 4th, this was told to you and ADJ, but just as recently as two days ago, there is a post about ableism. (this as a post from an individual is great – as TST WA not acceptable).
*Failed to attend a meeting to specifically address concerns about your guild which you were notified of and agreed to be there weeks in advance, and left ADJ (a non-lead in that guild) to answer for your guild. Your failure to attend that meeting led us to not be able to implement fixes that could have avoided IC catching wind of it’s off-mission abuse of the Tenets to push personal agendas.
*As Guild Head of Publicity, you did not initiate, conceive, nor execute ANY publicity campaign for our biggest action in two years.
*Failed to work with Evergreen for P4P despite being reminded for months and refused help from another member who also is an alum. Didn’t tell anyone you were out of spoons until the day before a scheduled outing with Barrett (Barrett went alone to the campus in your place even though he is not an alum).
*Lupercalia- Made Crimson feel like her home was a hotel by asking for a separate room to be made up for you last minute. Spent the night and left without cleaning or informing someone else that cleaning needed to happen. When discussed in Legion, did not own up to your contribution of the problem for several days.
Personally, I do like you as a person and enjoy your company, but this is “business” and I have to set my personal feelings aside and create the best team possible for the chapter. I need people to actually do the things they commit to so no one person gets overloaded, and who can communicate their lack of ability to complete a task with enough time for the group to recover. You have proven yourself incapable of these behaviors so I have adjusted my expectations accordingly.
Thank you for your understanding,
Siri
Shortly after this email exchange, Powell removed the other administrators from the Memes page besides Johnson, and changed the page name from “TST WA Allies” to its current iteration, “Evergreen Memes for Queer Satanic Fiends.” In response, Garvais sent an email out to the rest of TST-WA, announcing that Powell had “stolen” the page and was now banned from TST nationwide while Garvais awaited further instruction from TST’s International Council (formerly the National Council).
On March 15, 2020, Garvais and Case held a Zoom town hall conference within TST-WA, attempting to explain to the rest of the chapter why so many leadership figures had been removed overnight including a founding member. Garvais reiterated in that meeting that our being witnesses to the complaint was the primary motivator for our expulsion. The same day, Nathan Sullivan posted on his Facebook profile, talking about how he had been removed from the chapter he co-founded while on leave and without any communication about it.
On March 16, 2020, Garvais said that Fishbaugh’s membership had been revoked for being CC’d on emails and being Johnson’s romantic partner; Powell’s spouse was likewise expelled due solely to her connection to Powell.
Good morning Leah [Fishbaugh],
Sorry about the delay in getting back to you about your current membership status.
I don’t know if you were able to attend yesterday’s town hall Zoom meeting, but I did explain there that everyone whose privileges were halted were cc’d on Wylie’s emails and/or involved in the blow up in the legion chat, or partners of said folx. This was an emergency measure put in place to stop infighting and disinformation until I had time to deal with everything.
Unfortunately, because you are ADJ’s [Johnson’s] partner this meant your account was included.
I understand that there is heard feelings about this [process], but if you would lik to discuss reactivation we are wiling to discuss it. Just let me know.
Thank you,
Siri
Despite the attempt to control the narrative and member dissatisfaction, the sudden removal of so many prominent local chapter members rubbed many of those who remained the wrong way and they began to leave.
For the next several days, a few dozen former members of The Satanic Temple — local and national, new and old — joined a Facebook group and a new Discord server and began comparing notes about their treatment over the previous five years. Ex-members shared testimonials about how they had been pushed out, expelled, mistreated, and the way that power was structured and used to silence vulnerable people and then cover up what had happened by cutting them off from their support network in TST and spinning a story to ignorant people remaining about what had happened.
Again and again, locally and around the world, this had happened in the Temple’s chapters, with the most dramatic version being in 2018 when other chapters in the USA and Europe had tried to reform TST, been dismissed by the two owners, and left the national org, announcing their departures on social media and in first-person Medium articles providing accounts of their experiences.
On March 20, 2020, Johnson was still an administrator of the Chapter Facebook page, still had not received any contact or communication from anyone in the org, and had become increasingly aware of all of this history. That evening, he removed all other admins and editors from what had been the Washington State chapter page, posted his explanation of what was going on, and began to re-post news articles, former member testimony, and the past history of Doug Misicko and Cevin Soling — all of which showed the dissonance between the way The Satanic Temple described itself and its principles on one hand versus TST’s and its owners’ actual practices going back decades, on the other.
That evening, Paul Case sent an email asking for the page to be returned, and Johnson did not reply. The following day, TST lawyer Matthew Kezhaya sent a threatening letter claiming the Facebook page was TST’s website and property, and Johnson did not reply.
On April 3, 2020, United Federation of Churches LLC d/b/a “The Satanic Temple” filed a federal lawsuit suing Johnson ostensibly over what he had done with the chapter Facebook page, but also Fishbaugh, Powell, and Sullivan.