An eastern Pennsylvania school district has reached a settlement with The Satanic Temple in a lawsuit alleging discrimination against students by barring one of the group's After School Satan clubs from using a school building.

The American Civil Liberties Union said Thursday that the Saucon Valley School District had agreed to pay $200,000 in attorney’s fees and to provide The Satanic Temple and the After School Satan Club it sponsors the same access to school facilities as is provided to other organizations.

The ACLU filed the lawsuit in March after the district rescinded its earlier approval to allow the club to meet following criticism. The After School Satan Club, with the motto “Educatin’ with Satan,” had drawn protests and even a threat in February that prompted closure of district schools for a day and the later arrest of a person in another state.

Saucon Valley school district attorney Mark Fitzgerald told reporters in a statement that the district denies having discriminated against The Satanic Temple, its club or “the approximately four students” who attended its meetings. He said the district’s priorities were education and the safety of students and staff.

  • banneryear1868@lemmy.world
    15·
    10 months ago

    What qualifications do you have to decide which religions are allowed to be recognized under law?

    A political lobbying organization masquerading as a religion would run in to issues with it’s tax exemption status and potentially not fall under Title VII as a protected religious belief, which is what a lot of challenges to these laws are filed under re: workplace discrimination. This is something that religions are very careful about and intentionally work around. So when you say it’s a “pretend religion” you’re basically saying it’s adherents aren’t really religious. Courts actually do care about whether someone truly believes in a religion, because someone’s supposed religious beliefs are often appealed for why someone is a “good person,” or to establish whether discrimination actually took place. The law doesn’t share the same arbitrary definition of religion you have unfortunately, here’s what has to be appealed to for laws to be challenged in reality:

    …religion typically concerns “ultimate ideas” about “life, purpose, and death.” Social, political, or economic philosophies, as well as mere personal preferences, are not “religious” beliefs protected by Title VII.

    If you were filing a lawsuit like the one in the article and you professed it was a “pretend religion” your case would be thrown out, that’s why what you said is harsh because the implications of that invalidate it’s validity and effectiveness to challenge these laws.