Not Today Satan! In a win for everything that is decent a federal judge has recently dismissed a lawsuit filed by The Satanic Temple against the City of Boston. According to the Boston Herald, the Judge ruled that the city council did not discriminate against the group by refusing to grant its request to deliver an invocation at a recent weekly meeting.
In a 31-page ruling, Angel Kelley, a U.S. District Court Judge wrote that speakers delivering opening prayers “are invited at the discretion of the individual city councilors.”
The Satanic Temple Holds SatanCon 2023 in Boston#satanic#lucifer#illuminati #evil#rejectshttps://t.co/VbmLeQuiDH 💊 pic.twitter.com/R5jRNr0iCw
— Nathan seville (@nathan_seville) July 27, 2023
“The evidence on record, however, suggests that the city councilors’ discretion was not exercised in such a way that individuals or groups were excluded from giving an invocation because of their religious beliefs,” She explained.
The judge continued by noting that city council members “did not allow some requests while denying others.” Rather, she added, “the city councilors’ primary motivation in selecting an invocation speaker … has always been the individual or organization’s involvement in the community.”
The Satanic Temple claimed in their lawsuit in January 2021 that the denial was a violation of the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution. However, Kelley ruled there is no real evidence to back up their allegation.
The Satanic Temple lost again. This time suing the City of Boston because they weren’t invited for invocation.
And as the council declares, you have to have an exemplary record in the city as an upstanding group, and there’s already a huge list of people who have already proven… pic.twitter.com/wLL21x9Xs4
— TNChernabog (@TnChernabog) August 5, 2023
Kelley explained that the majority of invocation speakers have “been undoubtedly of a Christian denomination,” but acknowledged speakers from other faith traditions have been invited. This allows for the promotion of a “diversity of religious views.”
The Satanic Temple’s attack on the City of Boston has been an ongoing battle.
When the temple announced its annual SatanCon event in January, held in downtown Boston in late April, the organization stated it was dedicating the “largest satanic gathering in history” to Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, a Democrat. Fox News reported that this announcement was after the religious group was blocked from giving the opening prayer at a city council meeting.
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit The Satanic Temple filed against the City of Boston, ruling that the City Council did not discriminate against the group when it chose not to grant its request to deliver an opening prayer at a weekly meeting. https://t.co/9azudr92c0
— Boston Herald (@bostonherald) August 2, 2023
The Satanic Temple explained in a statement that it was dedicating the event to Wu “for her unconstitutional efforts to keep TST out of Boston’s public spaces.”
During the event, leaders of the Temple shredded a Bible before tearing a pro-police American flag. They openly pledged to destroy Christians’ “symbol[s] of oppression.”
