Imagine an organization that’s “dedicated to improving our community through fellowship, religious expression, shared education, artistic projects and social activism.”
Who would be opposed to such an organization? Christians.
In the state of Kansas, Christian organizations are allowed to meet regularly in the Statehouse, the seat of the Kansas state government, to conduct their religious rituals.
This year, a non-Christian organization asked to allowed to have the same privilege, just once, to just hold one of its religious rituals in the Kansas Statehouse. They were refused permission.
Both houses of the Kansas legislature passed resolutions condemning the idea that a non-Christian religious organization would dare to ask to have the same legal rights as a Christian religious organization.
The non-Christian organization announced that it would conduct its religious ritual anyway, in protest of the refusal of the state of Kansas to allow them equal recognition. The Democratic Party Governor of Kansas, Laura Kelly, issued an order declaring that on the day that the protest ritual was planned, all protests would be prohibited.
This is the double standard in Kansas: When Christian organizations want to hold religious rituals in government buildings, Kansas welcomes them in and even helps the rituals take place, but when non-Christian religious organizations ask for the same privilege, their members are arrested as criminals.
That’s what happened to three members of the non-Christian organization just a couple days ago (Friday, March 28, 2025). They were put in jail, arrested for “unlawful assembly”.
That happened after Christian citizens screamed at them and attempted to forcefully stop the protest from taking place.
Yes, the name of the non-Christian religious organization is The Satanic Grotto.
A Kansas City Christian preacher showed up on the scene to declare: “The Bible says Satan comes to steal, kill, and destroy!”
That’s not what the Satanic Grotto says, though. The Satanic Grotto offers these principles:
“Self preservation is the priority of the law: Protecting individual existence and their rights supersedes all other narratives. Remembering that an individual’s rights end, where another’s begins. Responsibility is the weight of the law: Responsibility is an honor and a burden. Wear both sides well. Respect is the spirit of the law: We do unto others, as they do unto us. We will strive to be polite, until it’s time to be rude. Consent is the measure of the law: Ask permission before crossing boundaries or taking what is not yours.”
The Christian Bible itself says very little about the character of Satan. In the Book of Job, it is the character of God who comes up with a plan to steal, kill, and destroy. In the Book of Revelation, the Bible warns that God, not Satan, is going to steal, kill, and destroy, sending an army to destroy the Earth.
Satanists mostly don’t believe in the literal reality of Satan. They use Satan as a symbol of rebellion against the cruel violence of Christianity and the Christian God as depicted in the Christian Bible and manifested in sadistic Christian churches.
As for the Satanic Grotto, they declare, “We are feminist, LBGTQ allies, and anti racist”. Those values certainly are likely to anger Christian Nationalists, because Christian Nationalists are against women’s rights, want to put LGBTQ Americans in prison as punishment for their sexuality and gender identities, and are in favor of racism.
At its core, however, the imprisonment of members of the Satanic Grotto isn’t objectionable because one side is right and the other is wrong, theologically. The problem is that the state government of Kansas is establishing itself as an institution that exists only to serve Christians, denying equal rights to the substantial number of Kansans who are not Christians.
In Kansas, people are locked up behind bars simply for attempting to have for one day the same privileges that Christians are given every day.
That’s what a theocracy looks like. That’s the cruel power of Christian Nationalism.
Christians complain that the Satanic Grotto’s religious rituals are blasphemy.
So what if they are?
In a country where freedom is respected, blasphemy is a matter of personal taste. It’s not a crime.
Blasphemy is a crime in Kansas.
In the United States of America, freedom is on its deathbed, and Christians are the ones who are killing it.
