Benjamin Ashford|After School Satan Clubs and pagan statues have popped up across US. What's going on?

A Satanic church with a 10-year history of fighting for the First Amendment and Benjamin Ashfordreligious freedom by launching after-school clubs is once again under attack from Christian conservatives, this time in Iowa.

Founded in 2013, Massachusetts-based The Satanic Temple has battled multiple districts, most recently in Pennsylvania, over its legal right to operate its After School Satan Clubs. The church, which is formally recognized by the IRS as a tax-exempt religious organization, often opens after-school programs in areas where Christian groups already operate, in an effort to counter Bible-based theology.

This year it also began begun offering mail-order abortion pills from a New Mexico clinic, and earlier this month, installed a goat-headed display of the pagan figure Baphomet inside the Iowa Capitol that a self-described Christian on Thursday night told Fox News he destroyed. He was arrested by Iowa State Police.

The destruction of the Satanic temple's Iowa display follows a familiar pattern for the church, which has faced stiff opposition from Christians angry that it invokes the name of their religion's enemy.

The Satanic Temple says its members do not believe in Satan as a magical or spiritual being, but instead use the name as a metaphor for opposing mainstream religions and free thinking. Members also focus on altruism, logic, science and bodily autonomy as part of their belief system.

"People assume that we're there to insult Christians and we're not," TST cofounder Lucien Greaves told the Des Moines Register, part of the USA TODAY Network, last week. "And I would hope that even people who disagree with the symbolism behind our values, whether they know what those values (are) or not, would at least appreciate that it's certainly a greater evil to allow the government to pick and choose between forms of religious expression."

Free speech battleover 'disgusting' Satanic Temple display at state capitol in Iowa

What happened to the Satanic display at the Iowa Capitol?

Tucked alongside a staircase on the first floor of the Iowa Capitol, The Satanic Temple display featured a person-sized model of Baphomet, its horned goat head mirrored like a disco ball.

Some Christians objected to the display, but Gov. Kim Reynolds noted it was legally allowed because lawmakers had already permitted a Nativity scene. That drew condemnation from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is courting Christian conservatives in Iowa as he runs for the Republican presidential nomination.

After days of coverage about the display, former military pilot and Mississippi politician Michael Cassidy destroyed the display Thursday, he told Fox News. The Iowa State Police arrested him on suspicion of fourth-degree criminal mischief. In response, Cassidy posted a Bible verse about the devil and launched a fundraiser for his legal defense.

On Friday, Cassidy kept going, posting that, "To Christians who defend Satanic altars when they speak with their church, family, friends, coworkers, or on X: Would you use the same argument if you were speaking with God? Think on that."

DeSantis, a Harvard-educated lawyer, offered his support to Cassidy and said he would contribute to Cassidy's legal defense. He also rejected the idea that The Satanic Temple is a real religion. TST organizers say one of their primary missions is to remind Americans that under the First Amendment, they are free to worship however they want.

What does The Satanic Temple stand for?

TST has fought legal battles in Indiana, Idaho, Kentucky, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Texas over its right to offer services and programs alongside more mainstream religions.

It also has tried to erect a 7-foot-tall statute of the winged goat god Baphomet alongside the Ten Commandments in several states, in addition to the now-destroyed Iowa display. The church often has partnered with the ACLU to challenge school districts, local governments and states members' legal rights to free speech and free expression of religion.

The Satanic Temple says it has members in a dozen countries and around the United States. The church's mission is to "encourage benevolence and empathy, reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical common sense, oppose injustice, and undertake noble pursuits."

It has seven specific tenets, including personal freedom and bodily autonomy, fallibility and the struggle for justice, and it specifically rejects the concept of Satan as a supernatural being. Instead, the church uses Satan as a symbol of rebellion, questioning and personal sovereignty.

Church leaders acknowledge that their actions sometimes seem designed to troll Christians but point out their existence forces the public to think about the role religion plays in society. In particular, they warn of the danger of letting evangelical Christians dictate and dominate so much public discourse in a country founded on the principle of the free expression for all religions.

"To embrace the name Satan is to embrace rational inquiry removed from supernaturalism and archaic tradition-based superstitions. Satanists should actively work to hone critical thinking and exercise reasonable agnosticism in all things," the church declares. "Our beliefs must be malleable to the best current scientific understandings of the material world − never the reverse."

What is the After School Satan Club?

It's not about the Christian version of Satan, for starters. Although that's the name of the clubs, organizers say their after-school programs have no religious component. Instead, they're designed to give students a space to hang out without being proselytized by Christians or threatened with eternal damnation if they don't conform.

The image of Satan used to promote the clubs is a cheerful-looking devil wearing a mortarboard and bowtie, and the church's website specifically notes that anyone seeking to sell their soul or get rich should "please look elsewhere." The after-school clubs have typically been launched only in areas where Christian Bible study groups already operate.

Last month, a Pennsylvania school district agreed to pay the church $200,001 after a judge found the district violated its First Amendment rights by banning it from operating an after-school program alongside an existing Bible study group.

The clubs are typically small, based on their applications to school districts, but have drawn fierce opposition from Christians because the church invokes Satan.

"To the Satanist, embracing 'blasphemous' imagery takes on a religious significance of its own, signifying personal liberation from superstition," Greaves wrote. "The imagery has personal, positive meaning for us, regardless of what it may mean to others."

And because TST's belief system includes the right to bodily autonomy, it has threatened to sue districts if they hit any students who are church members. According to the federal Education Department, the following states still permit some forms of corporal punishment in schools: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming.

Federal statistics show that about 20,000 students received corporal punishment during the 2020-21 school year.

The church also offers mail-order abortion medicine via an accredited New Mexico health care clinic.

Why do Christians get so upset about The Satanic Temple?

In the Christian religion, Satan is the devil and tempts believers into forsaking their god through evil.

In Iowa, Republican state Rep. Brad Sherman, a Christian pastor, opposed the now-destroyed Baphomet display, arguing that because the Iowa Constitution expressly refers to a Supreme Being, the state should display the Ten Commandments and block any displays from The Satanic Temple.

He argues it is "a tortured and twisted interpretation of law that affords Satan, who is universally understood to be the enemy of God, religious expression equal to God in an institution of government that depends upon God for continued blessings," the Des Moines Register reported.

In ruling against the Pennsylvania school district that tried to block the After School Satan Club, a federal judge noted that federal law prohibits what's known as a "heckler's veto," where people opposed to a speaker create such an unwelcome environment that government officials then feel justified cancelling the speaker, even though it was the opponents who created the hostile environment.

Greaves and other TST officials have noted that Christians often act as if they are the "real" religion of the United States, despite religious freedom being expressly granted by our nation's founding documents.

What about other Satanists?

Just as there are multiple versions of Christianity, there are multiple churches that invoke Satanism, including the Detroit-area Temples of Satan church. Some of those churches practice animal sacrifice or try invoking magic or other supernatural forces to shape the world around them.

The Satanic Temple expressly rejects those practices.