School district and The Satanic Temple reach agreement in lawsuit over After School Satan Club
The American Civil Liberties Union said Thursday that the Saucon Valley School District had agreed to pay $200,000 in attorney’s fees and to provide The Satanic Temple and the After School Satan Club it sponsors the same access to school facilities as is provided to other organizations.
The ACLU filed the lawsuit in March after the district rescinded its earlier approval to allow the club to meet following criticism. The After School Satan Club, with the motto “Educatin’ with Satan,” had drawn protests and even a threat in February that prompted closure of district schools for a day and the later arrest of a person in another state.
Saucon Valley school district attorney Mark Fitzgerald told reporters in a statement that the district denies having discriminated against The Satanic Temple, its club or “the approximately four students” who attended its meetings. He said the district’s priorities were education and the safety of students and staff.
If you called someone's religion stupid, that would also count as discrimination, and yet you have no problem doing it.
I've called the context the religion was formed in absurd (not a judgement because modern culture is absurd), and said the Church of Satan has effectively called them pussies (it has), but have not called the TST or it's adherent's stupid. Absurd doesn't mean stupid. Everything else is just from their own About Us page, which is mostly what people are disagreeing with here, which is funny cause I'm literally just saying what they say about themselves and getting debate-bro'd for it.
Also calling someone's religion stupid is perfectly fine if you don't discriminate based on that or harass them in person. I was just surprised you said TST was a pretend religion cause the only way they're effective in challenging laws is being a real religion, like that's a harsh way to undermine them. The made up definition to amend that statement having no basis in real law is irrelevant. You can't defend TST and believe they're pretending, I merely think it's absurd they have to sincerely believe a religion to challenge these absurd religious laws, but you think they aren't even really religious.
Undermine them? What?
Okay. I'll accept that I'm undermining them if you show me 1 (one) court case I have lost for the TST by saying they are not a real religion. I'll wait.
The definition was from an earlier comment where I explained it. Not my problem you didn't pay attention.
I can, and will.
But okay. Let's say you're correct. Let's say you can only challenge laws and institutions like these by sincerely help religious beliefs.
Show me the test to determine if a belief is sincerely held.
It doesn't matter if your belief is sincerely held or not, the courts have to treat religions equally, which is what the TST is here for.
Yeah there's actually been interesting stuff around this lately because people have claimed to have sincerely held religious beliefs re: mandatory COVID-19 vaccination exceptions. In cases like that the definitions of "sincerely held" are very relevant and questioned by the court.
Here's some case law where a court found a plaintiff did not hold a religious belief sincerely. I pasted the relevant section here, states actually have definitions around what constitutes religious creeds/religion/sincerely held belief. If you Google these phrases with "case law" you'll find much examples.
Some more reading:
https://www.callaborlaw.com/entry/defining-sincerely-held-religious-beliefs-that-might-excuse-mandatory-covid-19-vaccination
https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/section-12-religious-discrimination#h_9546543277761610748655186
https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/Nearly-200-S-F-police-staff-want-religious-16486136.php
https://casetext.com/case/malnak-v-yogi (long but gets in to all kinds of religious tests applied by court system and the corresponding law)