Sado-Satanists to Lead Prayer in Phoenix?: Unmasking Misogyny

WARNING: Because this article deals with Satanism, there are some explicit pics, links, and videos. This post is not appropriate for children.

 

“Heil Hitler!”

How many of the citizens of Phoenix would tolerate such a greeting from the podium at a city-sanctioned event?

Jex Blackmore Does Satanic Ritual on steps of Michigan Capitol

How many would rise in respect?

How would constituents feel about elected city officials standing in reverence as the greeting goes forth in the guise of a public prayer?

Well, no worries. Satanic Temple representatives scheduled to lead the City Council invocation on Feb. 17 don’t typically begin their prayer-speeches with “Heil, Hitler!”

They usually start out with “Hail, Satan!”

Which is much better…right?

Phoenix is the most recent battlefront in the war on religious freedom waged by the Satanic Temple. The group’s stated purpose is to force the removal of any evidence of faith from public life— like student-led prayer in Florida, the Ten Commandments monuments in Oklahoma and Arkansas, a nativity scene in Detroit— and now the opening invocation for the Phoenix City Council.

“Snaketivity”, a Satanic monument mocking Christmas

Representatives of The Satanic Temple (TST) openly state that their agenda is not religious, but political. Though they do Satanic rituals, the group claims that its members don’t believe the devil is real, or that the supernatural exists at all. They would like to redefine the word “religion” to include atheists and agnostics like them. Why? So they can have the same privileges and protections as churches and religious groups.

Their strategy is simple. The group is well aware that they represent the extreme end; the very bottom of the “slippery slope” of freedom of speech and religion. So ironically (and gleefully) they are attempting to use those dearly-held Constitutional rights to make it impossible for people of faith to use them at all. They are asserting their “right” to create an intolerable choice for Americans:

1. Either eliminate all public expressions of faith, or
2. Accept that The Satanic Temple has the right to display the most perverse and blasphemous expressions of their religion in all the same places— expressions that not only mock and desecrate what is holy to people of all faiths, but commonly held values and standards of decency in our communities.

The American public need not be intimidated, however, by this “Satanic” mockery of its values.

Because contrary to this group’s bold claims, we don’t have to accept it.

Not all speech is protected in all forums under the first amendment, and not all expressions are tolerated by Arizona state law.

There are limits placed on speech that degrades, disparages, and promotes violence against a protected group. And in Arizona, obscenity in public is illegal.

Back to our Nazis. It is true that in America Nazis have freedom of speech. They can even get away with hate speech, granted that speech does not “pose an imminent danger” of “inciting unlawful action”.

But that doesn’t mean that our City Council is required to let a group of Nazis take the mic and open the session with a self-promoting political speech in the guise of a prayer.

“Stereotypes!” Satan’s children will shout. “How dare you compare us to Nazis? Ignorant name-calling! We stand for tolerance and civil rights! You just don’t know who we really are!”

And I say, yes I do, Doug Mesner. Yes I do, Stu De Haan.

I am a woman, and I recognize you.

One need not look far to see which minority group the Satanic Temple targets, degrades, and promotes violence against.

Women.

You are misogynists, gentlemen.

Misogynists marching with the women who enable you.

 

Satan VS The Woman

Genesis 3:4-5 (NIV)

“So the LORD God said to the serpent (Satan)…And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers.”

In the first literary account of Satan— the book of Genesis— Satan and his children are marked with a distinctive characteristic: hatred for women.

In this regard, the Satanic Temple has certainly stayed true to its roots.

And this is its downfall, because women are a protected group under the law.

Obscenity is a form of speech prohibited by Arizona law as well.

Here are some examples of Satanic Temple leaders violating both.

 

The Baphomet Statue

The Satanic Temple commissioned a large Satanic statue of a goat— “The Goat of Mendes”— to be erected next to a Ten Commandments monument at an Oklahoma State Capitol. The figure features two innocent children gazing up at the goat in admiration. The group has now targeted Arkansas and it’s Ten Commandments monument as Baphomet’s next stop.

What the Satanic Temple doesn’t tell you about the “Goat of Mendes”, Herodotus will. From Wikipedia:

“Herodotus relates how all male goats were held in great reverence by the Mendesians, and how in his time a woman publicly copulated with a goat.

[54] E. A. Wallis Budge writes,

‘At several places in the Delta, e.g. Hermopolis, Lycopolis, and Mendes, the god Pan and a goat were worshipped; Strabo, quoting (xvii. 1, 19) Pindar, says that in these places goats had intercourse with women, and Herodotus (ii. 46) instances a case which was said to have taken place in the open day.’”

Of Eliphas Lévi, the creator of the best-known image of Baphomet:

“Lévi combined the images of the Tarot of Marseilles Devil card and refigured the ram Banebdjed as a he-goat, further imagined by him as “copulator in Anep and inseminator in the district of Mendes.“

Bestiality with women as a form of worship is abuse. It is degrading. It is obscene.

And this is the symbol the Satanic Temple has chosen to represent them? They are aware of what it represents. Knowing its history, the depiction could hardly be more perverse.

Unless, of course, you incorporate innocent children into the scene. Which they did.

What’s the little girl depicted in this Baphomet monument supposed to be thinking?: “Maybe someday I’ll grow up to be ritually abused by animals for the gratification of men?”

No, Satanic Temple, you do not have a right to degrade girls and women.

You do not have the right to promote the abuse of women.

Being pro-abortion does not qualify you as spokesmen for women’s rights.

Respecting women does.

So here’s a message from a real women’s right’s activist. We see through you. Until you get rid of that statue, sit down and shut up.

 

Breast Milk Pro-Abortion Protest

In a bizarre display of “guerrilla theater” at a pro-life rally, members of TST presented yet another abusive and degrading image of women. The Washington Examiner reports:

“Clad in black robes, members of the Satanic Temple of Detriot drenched bound women with milk, simulating water-boarding to “illustrate the theocratic agenda imposed upon female bodies.” The milk symbolized breast milk, one of the protest organizers explained on Facebook.

The group attached a symbol of their temple to the American flag and held up a sign that read, “America is not a theocracy. End forced motherhood.”

Again, TST talks women’s rights, while consistently putting forth images of women in bondage, degradation, and ritual torture.

They also go beyond promoting choice. They disparage women by disparaging motherhood. 80% of women in this country become mothers. Portraying motherhood as a sign of bondage, weakness,  or something to choke on and resent is obscene.

Choking on breastmilk? How offensive. We give life through our breastmilk.

TST is not just blaspheming the religious right. They are blaspheming women.

 

Michelle Shortt and Stu De Haan: Promoting Violence Against Women

Michelle  Short and Stu De Haan are the Satanic Temple members who are scheduled to give the invocation on Feb.17. Michelle Shortt will be the one offering the prayer.

Here are some examples of how Shortt promotes the objectification, exploitation, and abuse of women.

Here’s an depiction of Shortt brutally beheading a woman.

 

 

And the name on her bloodied T-shirt? “Scar Eater”—Stu De Haan’s band.

Here are some of the comments on this picture:

 

 

Whether this hate speech creates “imminent danger” for women is debatable. What is not debatable is the fact that it eroticizes and promotes violence against women. With the rise of ISIS and its barbaric practice of beheading, it can also be taken as terrorism.

Here’s a picture of Shortt titled “Choke Her, Choker”:

 

 

And here is something posted by Shortt on FB depicting a naked woman on a Satanic altar:

 

 

Do we notice a pattern? The images coming from The Satanic Temple have a consistent theme: violence and degradation of women.

In keeping with that theme, here’s Ms. Shortt as Baphomet— you remember, the deity whose worshipers offered up their women to have sex with goats in public?

 

 

Arizona law (in A.R.S. Section 13-3501 et seq.) defines obscenity as:

“…materials that depict or describe sexual activity which the “average person” would find (by contemporary state standards) to be appealing to “the prurient interest”— that is, a morbid, degrading and unhealthy interest in sex, as distinguished from a mere candid interest in sex; patently offensive; and, taken as a whole, lacking in “serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.”

This includes nudity and Sadomasochistic abuse, which is defined as:

“…flagellation or torture by or upon a person clad in undergarments, a mask or bizarre costume, or the condition of being fettered, bound or otherwise physically restrained on the part of one so clothed, for the purpose or in the context of sexual gratification or abuse.”

And according to Arizona Revised Statute 13-3502, there are strict rules governing the production, publication, sale, possession and presentation of obscene items:

A person is guilty of a class 5 felony who, with knowledge of the character of the item involved, knowingly:

1. Prints, copies, manufactures, prepares, produces, or reproduces any obscene item for purposes of sale or commercial distribution.

2. Publishes, sells, rents, lends, transports or transmits in intrastate commerce, imports, sends or causes to be sent into this state for sale or commercial distribution or commercially distributes or exhibits any obscene item, or offers to do any such things.

3. Has in his possession with intent to sell, rent, lend, transport, or commercially distribute any obscene item.

4. Presents or participates in presenting the live, recorded or exhibited performance of any obscene item to the public or an audience for consideration or commercial purpose.

Ms. Shortt has posted numerous pictures and videos on social media that would seem to meet the criteria of “obscene items”. Here are some examples: (Because of the nudity, I will only post links)

On Youtube:

• Videos of Shortt pole dancing
• Videos of Short doing an erotic suspension act
• Video of Shortt doing a tassle dance
• Photo shoots of Shortt in various states of nudity.

Images of Ms. Shortt on her other sites also include nudity, crude crotch shots, and erotic pictures that suggest bondage and violence.

Is this a spiritual leader? Is this an empowered woman? Is this someone we want our girls to emulate?

Are De Haan and Shortt stepping up as examples in the community of ethical and moral behavior?

Or is this the equivalent of a strip club owner parading one of his girls in a mockery of the faith and common values of the citizens of Phoenix?

Sexual freedom is one thing; obscenity and degradation of women is another.

We must tolerate different faiths, yes. But not at the price of promoting abuse.

 

…And The Women Who Made Them

The Satanic Temple is a hate group that targets women. It also recruits them.

Though the group claims to promote women’s rights, its culture and ceremonies do exactly the opposite. Their supposedly feminist representatives have a perspective skewed by its abusive culture. Like the women who actively campaigned against women’s suffrage, they are walking contradictions. They work against women, not for them.

Here are three posts by Jex Blackmore, national spokesperson for TST, that display this disconnect.

In Blackmore’s understanding, it makes sense to be part of a movement that has historically used women’s bodies for ritual gratification. Why? Because today’s Satanism has evolved. Now she’s the one pouring blood over a member’s body. She’s the one presiding over a ceremony…while some other woman is displayed on the stage, stripped down to her lingerie for the ritual gratification of men.

Look at these pictures. To the women of the Satanic Temple, this is what empowerment looks like.

We can have compassion, but we can’t let the abused define freedom. We must stand up and say no.

 

The Father of Lies: The New Westboro Baptist

Satan is known as the father of lies, and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

To listen to Satanic Temple representatives Doug Mesner (aka Lucien Greaves) or Stu De Haan, one would think that this is a group of free-thinking, compassionate intellectuals, fighting against the tyranny of bigotry and intolerance.

Until you hear what they really think about minorities in candid conversations like this one, where national TST spokesman Doug Mesner:

• mocks 9/11 victims (46:00)

Shane Bugbee (host): 9/11 means absolutely nothing to me. I could care less how many buildings fall, or are on fire, and how many people die around me, as long as it’s not me and my beautiful wife

Doug Mesner: (laughing) as long as it’s a lot

• uses racial and gay slurs, including the n*** word (throughout)
• participates in lewd and degrading discussions about shocking ways to use “whores” (50:42)
• suggests that women use semen for facials (51:35)
• refers to the host’s “Rape Book” (45:11)

(Even Jex Blackmore admitted that this interview is embarrassing.)

By redefining basic words, like “religion”, “good”, “evil”, “God”, and “Satan”, these articulate guys make their lies sound pretty good.

But the truth is, The Satanic Temple is a hate group with bigoted leaders. It’s the Westboro Baptist of liberalism. In fact, Mesner said he got the idea for one of his rituals from Westboro’s own funeral protests.

In other words, TST is following in Westboro Baptist’s hateful footsteps.

The ritual was the desecration of the grave of Fred Phelps’ mom.

 

 

Arrest warrants have been issued for TST members who participated in the “Pink Mass“, which was meant to change the sexual orientation of the deceased in the afterlife. In the Satanic ceremony, two gay couples engaged in homeoerotic behavior over the grave.

Then Doug Mesner exposed his sexual organs and laid them on the gravestone while someone took a picture.

 

This is the guy threatening the City of Phoenix with a lawsuit for not allowing The Satanic Temple to masquerade as ministers at a City Council meeting.

The Invocation Disinvitation: Discrimination or Discretion?

Today the Phoenix City Council will meet to discuss changing the rules for invocation invitations to be more like the state legislature’s. If they are successful, The Satanic Temple will be disinvited. And of course TST has vowed that if that happens, they’ll take the City to court.

But this will not be the first ever invocation disinvitation. Look at these examples of officials using discretion in who they choose to participate in public events:

• Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. was uninvited by now-President Obama from delivering an invocation. Mr. Obama denounced his former pastor’s views as “divisive and destructive,” giving “comfort to those who prey on hate.”
• Franklin Graham was disinvited from Pentagon Prayer Day for calling Islam evil and offensive
• Family Research Council President Tony Perkins received an invitation to speak at a national prayer luncheon at Andrews Air Force Base, but was disinvited because his position on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” contradicted President Obama’s.
• Donnie McClurkin, award-winning and internationally celebrated gospel recording artist and Christian minister, was uninvited from a MLK Memorial concert in Washington, D.C. because Mayor Vincent C. Gray heeded the demands of gay rights activists who wanted him dropped from the event.

It’s been assumed that excluding the TST will necessarily be a violation of discrimination laws. But consider this.

ABC 15 reported earlier this week: “Stu De Haan says they’ll deliver more of a statement than a prayer at the [City Council] meeting. ‘We just have a message that reason should come above all things and all decisions should be made from a non-agnostic standpoint,’ de Haan said. ”

As the City Attorney said, the courts have stated that the City “should not consider the content of legislative prayers…”

Unless.

“…unless they were clearly being used to proselytize or advance a particular religion.”

Since Mr. De Haan made it clear that the invocation time would be used for a statement that all people should make decisions from a non-agnostic standpoint, the intent to proselytize is clear— as is the intent to promote Satanism. The City is therefore under no obligation to allow TST to speak.

Here’s to decency and common sense.

And here’s to maintaining both in our great city of Phoenix