A school district in Illinois backs up its decision to offer “After School Satan Club” at one of its elementary schools.
The Satanic Temple of the United States has offered an Illinois school district an after-school program that includes various activities such as games, arts and crafts, problem-solving and critical thinking, among other things.
On its website, The Satanic Temple says it “promotes egalitarianism, social justice, and the separation of religion and state. Satanic temple beliefs used Satan as a symbol of representing ‘the eternal rebel’ against arbitrary authority and social norms.” As for the program, the group says that “proselytization is not our goal, and we’re not interested in converting children to Satanism.”
It goes on to say that the “After School Satan Clubs will focus on free inquiry and rationalism, the scientific basis for which we know what we know about the world around us.” It added that it prefers to “give children an appreciation of the natural wonders surrounding them, not a fear of everlasting other-worldly horrors.”
The program will be taught by volunteers at The Jane Addams Elementary School in Moline. However, a letter from Rachel Savage, Moline-Coal Valley Schools Superintendent, “no teachers from Jane Addams, or any other district teacher, is involved.” She added that “flyers were not distributed to all students,” the New York Post reports.
In her letter, she also mentioned that the school wouldn’t block the group from having the programs. “To illegally deny their organization (viewpoint) to pay to rent our publicly funded institution, after school hours, subjects the district to a discrimination lawsuit, which we will not win, likely taking thousands upon thousands of tax-payer dollars away from our teachers, staff, and classrooms,” Savage wrote. As far the group’s mascot being the devil, the group says he’s just a made up character, saying Satan as a “mythical figure representing individual freedom.”
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