Submitted by CRIN on
[17 September 2014] -
Orange County, Florida’s public school district has twice allowed a Christian group to pass out Bibles to its students, prompting a self-identified Satanist group to seek equal treatment. A religious organization called The Satanic Temple announced on Sunday that they willprovide “Satanic materials to students during the new school year. Among the materials to be distributed are pamphlets related to the Temple’s tenets, philosophy and practice of Satanism, as well as information about the legal right to practice Satanism in school.”
The Satanists reportedly intend to distribute a book called The Satanic Children’s BIG BOOK of Activities, which includes several games with Satanic themes geared towards children.
Satanic Temple spokesperson Lucien Greaves claims that “if a public school board is going to allow religious pamphlets and full Bibles to be distributed to students — as is the case in Orange County, Florida — we think the responsible thing to do is to ensure that these students are given access to a variety of differing religious opinions.” He has a point. Although school districts are under no obligation to allow outside groups to distribute literature to their students, once they permit a single group to do so, the Constitution places strict limits on their ability to exclude other groups whose viewpoints they disagree with.
In Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District, the Supreme Court considered an evangelical church which wanted to screen several Christian-themed films on school property, but was denied the opportunity to do so because the school had a policy that its premises “shall not be used by any group for religious purposes.” This policy, according to the justices, was not allowed when the school already allowed groups with non-religious purposes to use the school’s facilities to show films or for similar purposes — “the First Amendment forbids the government to regulate speech in ways that favor some viewpoints or ideas at the expense of others.”
Under the Constitution, what’s good for an evangelical church is also good for the Satanic Temple. The Florida school district may deny all outsiders the right to distribute literature to students, but once it allows one group in, it cannot discriminate because it happens to disagree with the views expressed by Satanists.