More Satanic Panic

“Expectin’ a miracle to make all this go away?  You know they don’t happen anymore.” William King Hale, Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

The Mayor from Jaws, became a Cop to 
institutionalize Tom Hanks in Mazes & Monsters

I don’t believe I can describe how utterly ridiculous the moral panic from Christianists over the Satanic Temple’s trolling seems to me.  Hilariously, the Satanic Temple is basically espousing a Humanist creed but, since disingenuous Republicans (including numerous past and current Supreme Court Injustices) treated an absence of religion to not being afforded 1st Amendment protections, the Satanists are a "religious" organization.

Decades ago I told my family I didn’t want to go to CCD classes or church anymore because I knew my own mind and I didn’t believe in god.  My loving grandparents didn't push it despite nominally being Polish Catholics and were totally fine with my decision.  I'd only learn many years later that my grandfather lost his faith during the war especially over the killing of your fellow man and being given special dispensation to eat meat on Fridays.

Long before I read Carl Sagan's Demon-Haunted World, I was aware of the conservative freakout over Dungeons & Dragons and so-called secret satanic cults.  Of course, these days conservatives call their latest iteration QAnon but, the falsehoods, underpinning, agitprop and people pushing it are the same ideologically with the same goal in mind; persecuting innocent people and to garner political power.

The 1st (modern) Satanic Panic in the 1980's came about from a confluence stemming from the political rise of Reagan and the rightwing moral hand-wringing over Heavy Metal lyrics, repressed memory recall, Dungeons & Dragons, and a whole bevy of false accusations of Satanic child abuse cults.  Religious fundamentalists, Congress, and law enforcement took a look at these claims and used them to blame and persecute a lot of innocent people.

What's always infuriated me about this was those who lead these moral panics, are invariably involved in the various church sex abuse scandals or abuse and misconduct.  This is the case to this day as Republicans run around with accusations which always turn out to be thinly veiled confessions.  For instance, the cryptofascist Florida Moms for Liberty couple which demonized and vilified innocent LGBTQ peoples.

In my entire life religion in America has been used to cynically excuse the crimes of rich, powerful, or well connected and shield them from accountability or as a cudgel against minority groups and those who ran counter the dominant culture.

In 2018 Illinois Attorney General began a 5-year investigation into the cover-up of child sex abuse by the Illinois Archdiocese of Chicago and the Dioceses of Belleville, Joliet, Peoria, Rockford, and Springfield.  Spurred by the Pennsylvania Grand Jury findings documenting 70 years of abuse and cover-up you can access and search the report here.

Over the course of this investigation, two goals remained at its core: first, to obtain a full accounting of substantiated child sex abuse committed by Catholic clergy in Illinois and provide a complete public report of substantiated abusers; and second, to give voice to survivors in an attempt to contribute to their healing journey. To these ends, my attorneys and investigators examined thousands of diocesan files, reviewing more than 100,000 pages of documents held by the dioceses. They spent countless hours engaged in interviews and conversations with diocesan leadership and representatives. And over the course of this investigation, my office received more than 600 confidential contacts from survivors through emails, letters, voicemail messages, interviews, and phone calls. My investigation team treated each allegation with the respect it deserved and followed leads as they arose to ensure we conducted a thorough and comprehensive investigation. To build the most compelling portion of this report, my team worked closely with survivors to draft narrative accounts of their experiences as children sexually abused by clerics. Without those survivors who bravely came forward to share their experiences and perspectives, neither the investigation nor this report would feel complete. I express my sincerest gratitude to each of those survivors, and to the others who contacted my office, for their deeply personal contributions.

And this isn't just a crime and cover-up confined to the very powerful Catholic Church but is rampant amongst the Baptists, Mormon Church, and other "christian" denominations.  Yet...

You never hear this mentioned by the Republican QAnon caucus, which instead directs their duped rightwing drones to direct violence, death threats, and attacks on the LGBTQ (especially, the small Trans community) which is under direct threats by legislation and of course, mass shootings from rightwing gun nuts.

That's merely the most direct reason I find the current Satanic Panic to be trite, ridiculous, and cynical.  It's again being used to direct violence, anger and hatred at the marginalized and oppressed to shield the Powerful and keep power in the hands of those who continue to use that power to harm, oppress, and afflict the afflicted, in direct opposition to the so-called tenets of Jesus Christ.

Additional:

For years these same right wing Reactionary catholic bishops called anyone in the US who questioned their fascist interpretation of the creed a “cafeteria catholic” now are being pissy babies complaining about the infallible Pope blessing same sex marriage.

Republicans hate America 16: The Satanic Panic

Batzel is the executive director of
The American Majority

As Republicans continue to use Magic Words as defense for their intolerance and oppression of the American people they’ve come to utter the trite phrase ‘It’s freedom OF religion not FROM’…. Ho ho ho oh so clever!

 But, the sad reality is Republicans don't believe in freedom of religion either.   Republicans are getting really comfortable with imposing their beliefs on others.  

In Wisconsin, a "Satanic Temple Christmas tree" had conservatives and current and former Wisconsin Republican Congressmen outraged.

"I think it's impossible to overstate how offensive this is to Christians," US Representative Mike Gallagher who spent time in Iraq as a Marine Corps Officer and apparently thinks his feelings are greater than the United States Constitution.

In Iowa, The Church of Satan (a tongue-in-cheek group if every there was one) erected a display in the State Capitol in Des Moines.  This was done in accordance with law.  But, conservatives don't believe in the Rule of Law but, the Rule of Man.  Ron DeShrimpus attacked the display and multiple other elected Republicans expressed their anger in their epistemically closed rightwing media which prompted former Naval Aviator and failed Republican candidate for elected office Michael Cassidy, 35, of Lauderdale, Mississippi, to completely destroy the religious display. Cassidy was charged with fourth-degree criminal mischief, on Friday.

It should be noted that from Ron DeSantis down to criminal Michael Cassidy to any of these hundreds of Republican officials they have all sworn an oath to support and defend the Constitution.  But, much like their religious beliefs that oath is a hollow phrase and a sham to dupe journalists and hide their true agenda. 

For a long time the goal of Fascist Fundamentalists has been to advance religious liberty arguments into the Federal Government (especially the Judiciary and Supremacist Court) where those arguments can be cleverly ensconced into Law.

In Late Antiquity, Christian Terrorists vandalized and destroyed the much of The Great Library of Alexandria and did everything they could to infiltrate and take over the Roman Empire.  We've been warned that infiltrating and radically altering the United States into a White Supremacist Evangelical Theocracy was the goal of the modern Christian Terrorists for 60 years even from The Godfather of Modern Conservatism Barry Goldwater.  Now, we have several Catholic Dominionists and lower courts and Federal Government is seeded with evangelical terrorists supporting nakedly religious edicts being substituted into law and undermining the secular foundations of the Country, especially the separation of Church & State

"The separation of church and state is a misnomer.  People misunderstand it.  Of course, it comes from a phrase that was in a letter that Jefferson wrote. It’s not in the Constitution. And what he was explaining is they did not want the government to encroach upon the church — not that they didn’t want principles of faith to have influence on our public life. It’s exactly the opposite."- Speaker of the House Mike Johnson

It's exactly the opposite that little snake Mike Johnson says... People of faith get to encroach on the Government as much as they wish.  You have the august and cherished right to believe in Christianity.  Even Catholics are accepted for now, as long as far-right Catholic Cardinals attack prominent Democratic leaders who are catholic like Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, or President Biden.

What Republicans could not possibly be making any clearer is they have no duty to respect your Religious Freedom and will blatantly violate your rights under the law because they feel ascendant.  It's hard to keep up with all the bad faith, crime, terrorism, perfidy being conducted by Republicans these days but, now that Republicans have successfully ended Roe v. Wade, their next target will be to destroy religious freedom and re-interpret the First Amendment to make sure you have the Freedom to follow their Religious Laws and Edicts.

D&D=Satanism=Barack Obama

The recent revelation that charity funds raised in honor of Gary Gygax at GenCon were turned down by the Cristian Children's Fund merely because of an association with D&D got me thinking about one of the many smear attempts made against Barack Obama.

Michael Goldfarb wrote:

It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman's memory of war from the comfort of mom's basement.

My first supposition was only jobless losers who play Dungeons and Dragons would vote for Obama causing all virile American Men to puff out there chests and declare I ain't no gaming dweeb and vote for McCain.

But, my friend Ran theorized it was because to many D&D is synonymous with Satanism. Of course, Faux News actually got around to making the conjecture with James Pinkerton's Pulitzer Prize piece The Devil is in the Details: Another Obama Connection You Ought to Know About, asking the important question Could Lucifer play a role in this presidential election?

It's 2008, yet we still have appeals to non-existent characters from bronze age fairy tales. The god of the bible clearly does not exist. But if the bible were somehow the word of god the bravest character would be Lucifer who threw off his chains of bondage and declared, in the face of impossible odds, I Will Not Serve.