A shocking personal account in the HuffPost describes the first person account of a self-described “attorney and mother who cares about civil right” who, in the wake of the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburgh, turned to the Satanic Temple, comparing the worship of the devil to Judaism and sects of Christianity. Jamie Smith acknowledged that she is “not the type of person who would normally consider becoming a Satanist.”
“When Justice Ginsburg died, I knew immediately that action was needed on a scale we have not seen before,” Smith wrote. “Our democracy has become so fragile that the loss of one of the last guardians of common sense and decency in government less than two months before a pivotal election has put our civil and reproductive rights in danger like never before. And, so, I have turned to Satanism.”
Smith presented the Satanic Temple as a banal form of non-worship like atheists who attend church or synagogue.
“In the same way that some Unitarians and some Jews do not believe in God, Satanic Temple members do not worship Satan and most are atheists. They are not affiliated in any way with the Church of Satan. Instead, the Satanic Temple uses the devil as a symbol of rebellion.”
In an interview with the Washingtonian, Smith stated that she had officially joined the Satanic Temple, comparing it to the Unitarian Church and Reconstructionist Judaism, a secualrized non-theistic movement that views Judaism as a social movement.
Smith cited the seven tenets of the Satanic Temple, none of which describe worshipping the devil.
“Reading through the Seven Tenets, I was struck by how closely they aligned with the unwritten code I had used to try to guide my own life for several years,” Smith wrote. “I realized, happily, that these were my people and that I had been a Satanist for several years without even knowing it.”
An article in the Federalist agreed, noting that the basic tenets of the left-wing closely align with those of the Satanic temple:
“While most leftists aren’t lining up to join the Satanic Temple explicitly, they do subscribe to its tenets. This is obvious in their push for abortion and transgender acceptance, their distaste for the Constitution, and their endorsement of protests-turned-riots.
When justice is more important than the law, and relativism receives religious freedom, the end is anarchy — and that’s a serious problem indeed.”
Smith referred to Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s nominee to replace Ginsburgh on the Supreme Court, a belonging to a Catholic sect that related to women as being “handmaids” in the manner described in The Handmaid’s Tale, a fictional novel by Margaret Atwood. Smith’s claim was based on articles in several media claiming that People of Praise, Barrett’s preferred church, were the basis for the novel that described a horrific society in which women were chattel. This claim was debunked as inaccurate almost immediately when it was revealed that Atwood did not base her novel on that sect leading Newsweek and Reuters to print corrections (but not to retract their salacious and inaccurate articles). Atwood has since gone on record giving ambiguous statements that contradict previous statements she has made about her novel.
The bulk oif Smith’s choice to turn to the Satanic Temple was based on her abortion advocacy. The Satanic Temple is, in fact, an active advocate of abortion and will soon appear befiore the Supreme COurt to challenge a Missouri abortion law that requires those seeking to terminate their pregnancy to first receive materials asserting that their abortion would end the life of a person. Despite their assertion that they do not worship Satan, their website features many depictions of Baphomet, the hermaphroditic goat-image of the devil. Ironically (or perhaps not), the image of Baphomet also depicts young children gazing up at Satan in adoration.
It should be noted that a similar image, a winged and horned bull, was a Canaanite pagan deity referred to as Moloch. Wanton sexuality and child sacrifice were the prominent forms of worship of Moloch. Worshipping Moloch was explicitly prohibited by the Bible and was associated with the prohibition against homosexualtiy, bestiality, and profaning the sanctity of marriage:
Do not have carnal relations with your neighbor’s wife and defile yourself with her.Do not allow any of your offspring to be offered up to Molech, and do not profane the name of your God: I am Hashem.Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is an abhorrence. Do not have carnal relations with any beast and defile yourself thereby; and let no woman lend herself to a beast to mate with it; it is perversion. Leviticus 18:20-23
