Apr 19, 2024

Satanism "is not a religion," said the Florida governor while signing a Christian Nationalist bill

Florida has become the latest state to pass a bill allowing chaplains in public schools.

On Thursday, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed HB 931 into law, giving school districts permission to hire volunteer chaplains. It’s a safe assumption that nearly all of the volunteers will be Christians. Participating districts must also let parents (and the public) know about the chaplains’ religious affiliations, and parents would have to give written consent before their kids met with a chaplain.

Beyond that, though, there are no rules.

There’s nothing in the law that says chaplains cannot proselytize to kids… which means it will almost certainly happen.

There’s nothing in the law requiring chaplains to have any specific set of qualifications. Any random person who gets a stamp of approval from a religious group can be a chaplain.

That means, however, that non-Christian groups will not be prohibited from participating in the program. If a chaplain is affiliated with a Satanist or Humanist or Islamic group, there’s nothing stopping them from joining in the fun. If a district allows Christian chaplains to work with kids but says no to an otherwise qualified non-theistic chaplain, it’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.

DeSantis doesn’t seem to understand that.

During his press conference yesterday when he signed this bill, he specifically said Satanists would not be allowed to participate:

"Some have said that if you do a school chaplain program, that somehow you're going to have Satanists running around in all our schools," he said at a press conference at a high school in Kissimmee…

"We're not playing those games in Florida," DeSantis continued. "That is not a religion. That is not qualifying to be able to participate in this."

That’s a lie. The IRS specifically recognizes The Satanic Temple as a church. The U.S. government recognizes religious labels like Humanist, Atheist, Agnostic, and Pagan. If groups representing non-theistic people decide to bestow the title of chaplain on anyone, they’re good to go.

It’s not the first time DeSantis has said something like this. Back in December, after a Christian destroyed a Satanic display in the Iowa Capitol, DeSantis said Satanism shouldn’t be recognized as a religion at all and that he would “chip in to contribute to this veteran's legal defense fund.” (That vandal has since been charged with a hate crime. His trial will begin in May. There’s no indication DeSantis has given him any money.)

Legally speaking, though, The Satanic Temple is well aware that what DeSantis said makes no sense:

"Despite DeSantis's contempt for religious liberty, the Constitution guarantees our equal treatment under the law, and DeSantis is not at liberty to amend the Constitution by fiat, at whim," said Lucien Greaves, co-founder of the The Satanic Temple. "He just invited Satanic chaplains into public schools, whether he likes it or not." 

Greaves added in an email to me that DeSantis’ words are “nothing more than empty grandstanding.” If a public school district or charter school is foolish enough to believe him, they’re in for a hell of a battle. If and when that happens, DeSantis is not going to have their backs.

It’s almost amusing that DeSantis said what he did when the person who sponsored the bill, Republican State Sen. Erin Grall, said the exact opposite when the bill was being considered.

"But I think that as soon as we get in the middle of defining what is religion and what is not, and whether or not someone can be available and be on a list, we start to run up to constitutional problems," Grall said, according to The Tallahassee Democrat.

"So I think that us making sure that it's open and available to anybody who wants to put themselves through the background screening, and let parents know they're available for that service, is the best way to go," she added.

It’s as if she knew this could happen so she wanted to downplay the possibility, and then DeSantis came along and blew up the entire plan. She was legally correct, though. DeSantis didn’t take the hint and fell into a quagmire of his own making.

You’d think DeSantis would have learned his lesson by now. Hell, earlier this week, DeSantis had to roll back his signature law on book bans precisely because an atheist activist, Chaz Stevens, was using the law to get the Bible and dictionaries out of schools.

The Associated Press asked DeSantis’ office for examples of liberal activists abusing the law and it provided one: Chaz Stevens, a South Florida resident who has often lampooned government. Stevens raised challenges in dozens of school districts over the Bible, dictionaries and thesauruses.

…

“When they need to make stupid stupider, they send me up. I’m part comedian, I’m part activist, I’m part artist. I just want a better society,” Stevens said. “I’m an idiot, but a smart guy at the same time.”

Stevens told me, in a separate email, "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes."

DeSantis is a master of playing stupid games. He’s also made it clear he wants to fight culture war battles, and the Republican-dominated Florida legislature is happy to play right along. But they’re sloppy. They write bad laws that can be exploited by anyone. And using a book ban to ban the Bible, or using a volunteer chaplain law to get Satanists in front of students, are valid and legal ways of fighting fire with fire.

If Florida Republicans don’t like that, they can stop passing thoughtless bills. But that would leave them with nothing to do.

There were amendments to the bill that would have prevented proselytizing, asked for student consent before meeting with a chaplain, required some common-sense (albeit Christian-specific) credentials for all volunteers, and established an oversight committee to handle potential complaints, but all of them failed.

Incidentally, just a couple of days ago, I pointed out that Rocky Malloy, the leader of the National School Chaplain Association (which lobbies for chaplains in schools), said exactly what DeSantis did—that Satanists would not be able to take advantage of these laws.

… There's no such thing as a Satanic chaplain. I know they threaten that, but there are none. And there's not one Satanic chaplain hired by the federal government. Zero. They don't qualify… It's a typical demonic threat. They have no resources. They have no chaplains—no chaplains recognized—because they don't qualify… A thing called black-letter laws, U.S. Constitution. If you blaspheme God, you do not qualify to be a religion. So no Satanist can get a job saying “equal access” because they're not in that group.

He was wrong about everything. As I wrote:

In Iowa, before its chaplain bill died, a Satanic Temple minister said the state has "several ordained ministers of Satan and we would be happy to engage children.”

In Utah, where a similar bill was also defeated, a Satanic Temple leader told lawmakers she was “ready to embrace this new potential role within Utah’s communities.”

In Florida, where a chaplain bill is still under consideration, the leader of a local atheist group said, “We will definitely be pursuing opportunities to be involved in this program if this bill passes.”

David Williamson, the co-founder of the Central Florida Freethought Community and the atheist who made that last comment, confirmed with me that CFFC would be ready to go:

We hope that Central Florida school boards, and all school boards across the state, will do what many districts in Texas did, which is to refuse to have chaplains in public schools. This program is optional. If any districts choose to have chaplains, the CFFC will ensure that humanist voices are part of the conversation as we have with our secular invocations project.

So at least one group is ready to push back. It remains to be seen which districts will accept chaplains, which non-Christian groups have systems in place to “ordain” their people, how difficult it’ll be to file the necessary paperwork to get those chaplains in the system, etc. And all of that would be required just to get in the door; there’s no guarantee a parent would sign off on allowing their kid to see a Humanist or Satanist chaplain in school. But the first battle is getting them on the list.

If the districts or the government attempts to block them, though, you can bet a lawsuit is forthcoming. Given DeSantis’ bigoted statements, there’s no denying his desire to discriminate on the basis of religion.

The wisest thing school districts could do in response to this new law, as Williamson said, is ignore it. By allowing chaplains into their schools, they would be opening the floodgates in a religious battle that will help absolutely nobody.

Instead of volunteer chaplains, school districts should invest in skilled professionals. They should hire good secular counselors and social workers who will do their jobs to the best of their abilities—with no ulterior religious motives. By doing that, they will ensure that all students get the assistance they need while avoiding all the lawsuits DeSantis is inviting by signing this idiotic bill.