SALEM, Mass. — Churches and tax exemption go hand-in-hand. But what about those who turn crosses upside down?
Are Satanists deserving of tax exemption?
The Satanic Temple in Boston, Massachusetts says it’s been designated a church by the Internal Revenue Service, according to The Washington Post.
The Satanic Temple provided The Associated Press with a notice it recently received granting its new tax-exempt status. The letter used a code that classifies it as a “church or a convention or association of churches.”
The Satanic Temple is branching out nationally and is now listed in an IRS database for tax-exempt organizations. An email seeking comment was sent to the IRS, The Washington Post reported.
The group says the designation will help in religious discrimination legal cases and allow it to pursue faith-based government grants.
On The Satanic Temple’s website, its mission reads:
“The mission of The Satanic Temple is to encourage benevolence and empathy among all people, reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical common sense and justice, and be directed by the human conscience to undertake noble pursuits guided by the individual will. Politically aware, Civic-minded Satanists and allies in The Satanic Temple have publicly opposed The Westboro Baptist Church, advocated on behalf of children in public school to abolish corporal punishment, applied for equal representation where religious monuments are placed on public property, provided religious exemption and legal protection against laws that unscientifically restrict women’s reproductive autonomy, exposed fraudulent harmful pseudo-scientific practitioners and claims in mental health care, and applied to hold clubs along side other religious after school clubs in schools besieged by proselytizing organizations. “
The Satanic Temple website “About” page
The “non-theistic” group advocates for a stricter separation of church and state. It placed a statue of the goat-headed creature Baphomet at the Arkansas State Capitol last year to call for the removal of a Ten Commandments monument.
The Satanic Temple, founded in 2013, emphatically distances itself from the Church of Satan, founded by the late Anton LaVey in 1966.
Satanic churches are not confined to the mythically-infused Salem, Massachusetts domain, however. The Satanic Temple is also in Boston, Albany, NY, Arizona, Atlanta, Austin, Colorado, Houston, Indiana, West Florida, Minnesota, New Orleans, New York City, Oklahoma (forthcoming), Ottawa, CA, Santa Cruz, Seattle, and Springfield, Missouri.
The Satanic Temple made headlines in 2014 when it placed a Biblical scene of an angel falling into a pit of fire as a contrary response to the Nativity scenes that have had a place in the Florida Capitol.
Satanism is a mixed-bag of religious identity and socio-political protest. There are those who do in fact worship the entity known as “Satan,” while others claim it is merely a way to enforce separation of church and state.
Historically, Satan has been identified as the “Prince of Lies,” so what that says about those who “worship” Satan by definition remains questionable.
