Dark messengers of satanism could soon be walking the hallways of Florida’s public schools, and it’s a consequence of hard-right governor Ron DeSantis’s push for more religion in education.
Members of the Satanic Temple say they are poised to act as volunteer chaplains under a state law that took effect this week opening campuses to “additional counseling and support to students” from outside organizations.
Although HB 931 leaves the implementation of chaplain programs to individual school districts, and only requires schools to list a volunteer’s religion “if any”, DeSantis has made clear its intent is to restore the tenets of Christianity to public education.
Without the bill, DeSantis said at its signing in April: “You’re basically saying that God has no place [on campus]. That’s wrong.”
The satanists see the law, which comes amid a vigorous theocratic drive into education by the religious right nationally, as an equal opportunity: if Christian chaplains are permitted access to students, often at the most vulnerable and impressionable stages of their lives, then so are they.
There are, however, no plans to introduce studies of the dark arts or satanic rituals to any classroom. The Satanic Temple champions Satan not as a literal, omnipresent demon, but as a symbol of rebellion and resistance to authoritarianism. It says its strategy here is to highlight flagrant violations of the constitutionally protected separation of church and state.
“You have theocrats pushing further and further, signing unconstitutional bills into law, and they realize there’s no consequence,” said Lucien Greaves, co-founder of the Satanic Temple.
“And they also realize that when people see these laws passed, and the outrage comes, they’re not even necessarily going to recognize or realize when those laws are later overturned by the courts.
“They’re giving everybody the impression that these types of things are legal, this is just the environment we’re living in. And in that way they’re really numbing people to when these things actually do take effect, or when they are upheld by a corrupt judge who’s just playing partisan politics.”
Greaves said his organization has members ready to volunteer if school districts in any of Florida’s 67 counties, or charter school governing bodies, announce they’re signing up for DeSantis’s chaplain program. So far, with the law only a week old, and campuses on summer recess, none have.
The tactics have worked before. When Rick Scott, DeSantis’s predecessor, signed a 2013 law promoting prayer sessions and religious freedom in schools, temple members rallied in support. Almost 90% of respondents to a Guardian poll at the time said satanists had the same rights to worship in Florida schools as members of other mainstream religions, and perhaps deterred by the prospect of being seen in favor of it, school districts backed away.
The temple gained even more prominence later that year by announcing a 7ft bronze sculpture of the pagan idol Baphomet, a blend of human and goat with an angel’s wings, which would be displayed alongside a recently installed statue of the Ten Commandments at the Oklahoma state capitol (the Ten Commandments statue was later removed by order of the state’s supreme court).
Elsewhere, the temple pioneered After School Satan Clubs in states where religious groups are permitted to operate on campus and, it says, “use threats of eternal damnation to convert school children to their belief system”. The program focuses on science, critical thinking and the creative arts, with “no interest in converting children to satanism”.
In Florida, meanwhile, DeSantis has promised he will not allow Satanic Temple members in schools.
“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. We’re not playing those games in Florida. You don’t have to worry about that,” he said at the signing.
Although the Satanic Temple is recognized by the US government as a church, DeSantis said satanism “is not a religion” and therefore “not qualified to be able to participate”, a comment that appeared to contradict a key premise of the bill.
“It was advanced with promises that public school chaplain positions would be open to everyone, and that chaplains would provide spiritual counsel to students who wanted it, but would not proselytize or coerce students into religious activities,” the Freedom From Religion Foundation said in a statement.
“When Florida school districts consider this new law, they now know that those promises were false.
“If chaplains are not expected to push their religion onto students, why would DeSantis and others be so concerned about barring chaplains from disfavored minority religions? The assurance that the law will not favor Christian chaplains has been a bald-faced lie from the start.”
DeSantis’s office did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.
Greaves said the temple was prepared to take legal action if the state of Florida attempted to block its access to schools.
“When [DeSantis] stood at the podium and told people they were going to put chaplains in schools, but satanists wouldn’t be allowed to, he was straight up lying to the school districts, and opening up them up to a liability that he’s not going to cover,” he said.
“There was nothing written in the law that would exclude us. He can’t just declare something like that by fiat and expect it to be treated as law, and if he doesn’t understand that, which likely he really doesn’t, he obviously has no place being a governor.”
