Ep.33: Satanism Under the Gavel - Legal Frontiers of Religious Liberty

# Satanists Nextdoor
# Ep.33: Satanism Under the Gavel - Legal Frontiers of Religious Liberty

[Lilin Lavin]
Welcome, dear listeners, to Satanist Next Door. We're your hosts, Lilin Lavin and Tommy Lavin. Whether you're an open-minded curious onlooker or a fellow Satanist seeking camaraderie, our goal is to share our personal experiences and delve into the intricate tapestry of Satanism in our daily lives, occasionally inviting other guests to share their unique perspectives, leaving no pentagram unturned.

We'll explore how our beliefs shape our views on society, dive into struggles and triumphs we've encountered, and reveal the humanity that unites us all. So grab your favorite chalice and join us on this captivating journey. Satanist Next Door is ready to peel back the curtain and offer you a glimpse into our world, one captivating episode at a time.

[Tommy Lavin]
Hello and welcome to another episode of Satanist Next Door. So today, we're going to be talking a little bit about this new exciting Senate bill that is trying to be pushed through Arizona, SB 1279, where they are basically trying to say that Satanic displays of any sort are not allowed on public property.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. So it looks like it's an amendment to an existing piece of legislation and the Republican individuals like Jake Hoffman, who is the main proponent behind this. So the big push is to stop allowing public displays, including any kind of monuments, anything that I guess implies worship towards.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. It says like memorial statues, altars, displays of any or other method of representing, which whatever that means, honoring Satan may not be displayed. So you know, if you're going to ban all religious displays from public property, cool, you know, down for that.

But you can't ban one religion because you don't like it. You know, that's completely against the Constitution.

[Lilin Lavin]
Well, the other issue is even if you are, let's just say, majority Christian, this could definitely begin to chip away at even different sects of Christianity from, you know, and of course, other alternate religions that exist. You know, again, a pluralistic nation, we have, you know, Hindu, Buddhist, there's so many different beliefs out there. So if you start taking away religious privileges and freedoms and rights from one group, like Satanist, you're eventually going to take it away from others.

[Tommy Lavin]
I mean, so it opens the door for Yeah, you know, so yes, maybe people look at this and say, Oh, yeah, I hate Satan. Satan shouldn't be represented in the public, but I'm okay with Buddhism and Hindu. Okay, cool.

What about the next representative who isn't? Right. And as you said, you've already opened up the door for this.

So I mean, the way America works is freedom of religion. That doesn't mean only your religion, it doesn't mean that only the few specific religions or sects of your religion that you like, it means all religions and like it or not, Satanism is a legal recognized religion in the United States.

[Lilin Lavin]
Right? I mean, you look at it and people say, well, how is it illegal? You guys are just trolling.

It's just there to piss off Christianity. It's not a valid religious belief. Actually, yes, it is.

And it doesn't even need Christianity to exist. Right? It exists separate from the entire premise of what it is Christians have based Satan on.

Are there notes of that same character in the one that we not literally, but metaphorically believe in? Yeah, there's definitely that aspect of challenging the controversy, the pushback against, you know, ideas, making you question yourself, making you, you know, really look into what it is you're doing, at least if you go into the Old Testament.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
And when you say believe in, it's again, believe in the idea of, right, again, you know, that it represents the whole premise of it was built on this romantic Satanism. And it's not a literal matter. Like it's a metaphorical literary deity, not an actual living, really believable.

And it's not even a deity. It's really a symbol. It's emblematic of things that we as individuals would like to see or believe it should exist or want to embody and what we embrace as individuals on this path.

So it's not even a deity. It's an idea that has this story behind it of pushing back against the very things that we're seeing today, like this overarching push to create a theocratic nation.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And we don't, we don't even, people don't even need to justify what Satanism is. I mean, at the end of the day, Satanism is a legal recognized religion, period, end of story.

Right. And in America, we're a pluralistic nation, we have the Constitution, and you cannot pick and choose which religions you will allow to be displayed in public areas.

[Lilin Lavin]
And as far as religions go, we have deeply held beliefs, we have foundational values, we have rituals, we are, you know, we are out there doing things. And I want to remind folks, and I know Lucian has talked about it, other individuals talked about it, weddings, funerals, these are ritualistic practices.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. Like it or not. Yeah.

And so I wouldn't even, you know, looking at this, looking at this bill, I mean, it's pretty, it's kind of vague in a way. It's very vague. You know, so does that mean you can't have a satanic wedding if it's on?

[Lilin Lavin]
Well, the thing is, we're not worshiping Satan. We're not putting up things in the monument to Satan. We're literally discussing the idea of this metaphorical character as an emblem of something.

It's metaphorical representation of something. And that's subjective in many ways. But there is foundational understanding of what we built this on top of.

So to say that it can't be in the worship of, fine, we are not worshiping Satan. So I mean, it's super murky in the way that they try to say, you can't have monuments. Well, what about I know that one of the congregations had tried to do a veterans monument.

There are satanic veterans, there are satanic soldiers.

[Tommy Lavin]
No.

[Lilin Lavin]
Did they? Yeah, I know. No, no.

That's nasty talk there. Yeah, I know. I'm awful.

But honestly, the idea that you can't do that. So fine, do you take away everything that has a hint of religious, you know, is it a religious monument in general? Or are we just going to start picking and choosing which ones have the right to share the public square?

Because I'm pretty sure that the Constitution meant all of them. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty clear on that.

[Tommy Lavin]
I think that point, it has been argued over and over again. You know, even so much as I remember a court case a very long time ago, this was before TST, where an inmate sued because he wanted the satanic Bible and the prison tried to say no. And he was like, can't discriminate against my religion.

[Lilin Lavin]
And, you know, people that were arguing for this said that it was, in their opinion, necessary to maintain secularism in public spaces. And yet, they're not saying that we won't have any symbolic representations of Christianity, that crosses and things like that shouldn't. And I agree, all of them maybe don't exist, shouldn't exist in certain forms.

I don't think they should be in political houses. I don't think they should be in legislative buildings. I don't think they should exist in the realm of law.

I think that it is something that is, it's very, it's, if we are a pluralistic society, as we often discuss, then there shouldn't be crosses or, you know, religious icons or, you know, other religious symbology, including satanic symbology in these places to keep them as neutral as possible for all people that are going to Capitol buildings, all people going to courtrooms, we should try to keep it as pluralistic as possible.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yes, but until they say all religions are not allowed, and obviously they display Christian monuments, you know, I see it all the time. I mean, quite often, especially here in Texas, right?

[Lilin Lavin]
They have it up in the schools and not the 10 commandments, but they have the in God we trust because the national motto, yada, yada.

[Tommy Lavin]
So, you know, as long as they're going to allow one, they have to allow them all I and I think this bill was a reaction to what happened in Iowa. It does feel that way. Absolutely feels that way.

They were like, okay, so how do we stop this from happening? Well, I know, we'll just not let progression.

[Lilin Lavin]
So you had to Santa's kind of coming out trying to win brownie points with the GOP MAGA, specifically the MAGA base, and those extremist groups within that. And he came out and said that Satanism wasn't a real religion. And so that sparked a lot of conversation and some controversy.

And then you had Michael Cassidy, who drives states away. He's a failed political, you know, potential candidate. Yeah, he's part of that extremist group.

So he definitely a Christian nationalist sort of thing. He hears this conversation, he hears these other conversations, and he decides, you know what I'm going to do to try to really recapture the lightning that I was never quite able to catch in the first place is to go over there and really show them who's boss really, you know, stand for my faith. And he played the FAFO game.

And he is now at the intersection of the fucking around and finding out where it was given the hate crime.

[Tommy Lavin]
It was deemed a hate crime, because it was a hate crime. He pre this was premeditated. He didn't, you know, just stumble into this, this area, and then see this satanic monument and just have the this real quick moment of freak out, which even that wouldn't be okay.

Right? But maybe you could make an argument and say, Oh, my God, I was so shocked by this. I just went crazy.

No, he drove states.

[Lilin Lavin]
There was an individual at the Capitol building there, where the display was who went there, as I could see, because I wasn't there just from the publicity that was going and ongoing for this monument, not monument for this display of Baphomet. There's an individual they're praying pretty routinely. That's fine.

I'm never going to tell someone they don't have a right to do that was their way of opposing that that particular display and sharing their deeply held beliefs. And they felt that that was something that they they were called to do. That's fine.

Cool. Do that all day long. That is your right.

Pretend sky God. All you want. I don't care.

I mean, regardless of what it is, but that was their way of trying to counteract something they felt was, you know, whatever. What Cassidy did was he decided to drive across state lines and continue to say, I, because of my beliefs, felt compelled to attack this representation of evil. And it's not that's a subjective viewpoint from his personal religious beliefs, which, again, he's entitled to.

But the the action, that's where you start to have, you can think what you like, you can feel what you like. Those are fine. It's when you begin to be abusive towards other people.

So we like attacking them verbally, attacking them physically. And again, verbal gets a little weird. But if you start to lash out in a very aggressive, harmful, toxic way that is causing emotional harm to someone, I have a problem with that.

It's not illegal or violent. You know, I have a problem with it. And it's wrong.

But then it becomes illegal when you decide to put your hands on someone, someone's belongings, you destroy property, which he did. And you say that you did it in the name of God. That's atrocious.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I mean, it falls, however you want to describe it, it falls under a hate crime, remove that it was a satanic display and put in Buddhist, put in Hindu, put in Muslim, whatever you want. If he went there to destroy it, because of that, and because of religion, and because he dislikes that religion, that's the definition of a hate crime. I mean, if he assaulted somebody because of their religion, hate crime, I mean, this is this pretty simple stuff.

I mean, it's like the satanist. And when I described this online to, to the Christian nationalists that try and, you know, argue his point, I'm like, no, see, the difference is the satanist put up their display, and they left the Christian display that was nearby alone, didn't touch it. If they would have gone over there and destroyed that Christian display, that would have been a hate crime too, right?

So, you know, yes, we are all for treating it equal. If somebody claiming to be a satanist attacks a Christian and says, I'm attacking you because you're a Christian hate crime, you know, I mean, again, just going back to the fact that Satan is not a literal deity, right?

[Lilin Lavin]
It's a metaphorical literary character that embodies attributes that we find noble and aspirational, and that we strive to, you know, embody, embody and what we strive to like work towards, because a lot of us, you know, we recognize we have things to work on in ourselves. And this is one of those things, along with the tenants that help us to structure different ways that we're trying to accomplish whatever it is that we're looking to do with ourselves. Yeah, we're flawed beans.

But when you you know, you look at it, the symbol is is not just defiance, but it's intellectual freedom. It's resistance against what we're seeing tyranny. And it's the qualities that we're trying to, you know, nobility and action and thought, critical thinking, individualism, the courage to challenge unjust power structures, which when you have legislation coming out, and we have members in Arizona, so you know, these kinds of things happen, members in Iowa, what they was, you know, their freedoms were taken away from them, their freedom of expression, their freedom to share in a public space that they were invited to participate in after following all the same rules and laws as everyone else.

You know, it took their freedoms away. And how do you stand there on a religious platform and say that you're for these things. And a lot of the extreme party often talks about First Amendment rights.

It's one of the big drumbeats. You know, you guys are trying to oppress people's, you know, free speech. This is free speech.

This is the absolute fundamental free speech that you keep talking about.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, well, I mean, they're all good and for it unless it's, you know, unless they don't agree with it. But I mean, at the end of the day now, so, you know, we already did the episode about, you know, what happened up there. And now you see this bill come out from Arizona, which is concerning to you that, to me, this kind of reeks of satanic panic shit all over again, you know, it does.

[Lilin Lavin]
And then you see other little things come out that are the same sort of, you know, back when and we talked about this too, but back when it was D&D and backwards metal records. And, you know, glorified and glamorized and all these weird Hollywood, you know, cinematic interpretations of what satanists are and what satanism is, you know, you even saw a new exorcist come out. And it always just brings up the same kind of stuff.

This is this is real life.

[Tommy Lavin]
You know, yeah, they got this from magic.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah, this is spiritual warfare happening, brother, you know, the stuff that you that you see happening online, where they actually point to these things as if they're real. Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, like this is a scientific, this movie was a scientific study on how and what demonic possession as seen as the exorcist to Yeah. I don't know. I mean, it's, again, I have a hard time with it, because we've been it's kind of like been there, done that, you know, we've already went through that we went through this in the 80s and the 90s.

And then it's sort of toned down a bit. But now as Christian nationalism as, you know, evangelicals that whatever you want to say are becoming very loud, again, you know, Christianity in of itself is shrinking in its ranks, but it's growing in these. So you're getting more, you're getting more extremists, you're getting less Christians overall, because people are leaving the religion that I've seen a lot of statistics that that say Christianity is Yeah, but you're getting more extremist.

So that's in a way kind of worse, because now, yeah, you have shit like this going on.

[Lilin Lavin]
And it seems like the conservative you point on this just goes over the fact that because Satanism is outside the bounds of traditional mainstream religious practices, it doesn't merit the protections afforded by the First Amendment doesn't have the right to to have that same space, that same freedom that other things. So what I want to ask people, as you look at this happening and unfolding, where does that, that line start and stop? Where do you become something that is deserving?

And it goes outside of religion, honestly, because when you start to nitpick who deserves freedoms, who deserves constitutional protections, that's very slippery slope language, that that's extremely dangerous.

[Tommy Lavin]
But a lot of the language that I see coming out of the ultra conservatives now is very, very dangerous language, depending on how narrow the definition they choose to adopt, you're really looking at hurting a lot of people potentially.

[Lilin Lavin]
And this is how, in my opinion, you slide into theocratic rule, because only one very narrow definition has these privileges and freedoms and rights. And you start just chipping away. And it sounds unfathomable.

It sounds farfetched. But these same arguments could be applied to women to interracial couples to, you know, gay marriage to, and on and on and on. There's all these things that, you know, how narrow does the definition of constitutional freedoms and protections, you know, go?

How far is that laser focus?

[Tommy Lavin]
Well, and I think, quite honestly, I mean, 2024 is a year where we're going to see if this gets pushed that far, because depending on how that election goes, I, you know, if it goes the wrong way, then I think we're going to see just how narrow this can become.

[Lilin Lavin]
And that is dangerous. It's, it's really concerning. I mean, I don't want to be alarmist and say that I think that it's impending, right?

I don't think we're there. But I have a lot of concerns. The positive is I do see even this very, in my opinion, biased SCOTUS is still upholding things.

And there is a lot of legal precedence that exists in the interpretation of the First Amendment that kind of protects all religions, especially religions like Satanism, and the religious freedoms that are afforded beyond Judeo-Christian traditions. So you have, you know, cases like Torcaso versus Watkins from 61 that ruled a state cannot require religious tests for public office. I mean, it's different, but it's the same sort of thing.

You know, Church of Leucum Babalu versus the city of Halea, which protected Santeria. You know, there's there's things out there that happen globally. There's tons of stuff where things that don't necessarily conform to what a society dictates as the norm, still have the same privileges, still are afforded the same rights.

So it's not just something you see here. These challenges are global. They're far reaching.

People do this routinely. And routinely, society comes back and says, even if we don't like something, we still have an obligation to uphold the same freedoms that we want for ourselves. And that's long been the way things have gone.

And now we're starting to see where, no, I want all of it. It's all mine. It only applies to me.

And it's this very nationalistic, xenophobic sort of Christian nationalism that's just creeping more and more.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I mean, I would not be surprised. I mean, if you would have asked me a couple years ago, I would have said this bill is dead on arrival. You know, now, I think it's probably dead on arrival, but I can't actually, in good faith, guarantee that anymore.

I think it will be. Yeah, I think it probably will be.

[Lilin Lavin]
But I think back to when the Roe challenges began, you know, when they started talking about these things and very peripheral conversations, little tiny legislative things that were put out there. It was this kind of buckshot approach, just kind of spreading it all over and seeing the things that stick and then building on the things that actually have a foothold.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
This is the same sort of, yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
Take bits and pieces, win this little battle here, win this little battle there. And, you know, and they just start chipping away at it until eventually, holy shit, Roe's gone. You know, so same sort of thing.

They'll just sort of try and chip away at this. You know, we were talking earlier, and because this breaks so much of that sort of satanic panic stuff, and I do expect other states, I expect Texas, Florida, you know, other states like that to look at this and say, hmm, hey, this is a really good idea. And of course, try and push something like this.

Then, you know, if they pass it, then it gets sued and, you know, whatever, then how many, how long does that go on? And then do they try and take legal action in between? There's just so many open questions that this opens up.

But, you know, I was talking to you earlier about the satanic panic, and I said, this time, I think the satanic panic would be a little bit different. And I don't think they will be as successful as they were last time. Because last time, there are still people that are literally getting their record dismissed or cleaned back up from the 1980s and 1990s.

I mean, and that's sad.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah, there was tons of people that were accused of being satanist and using all manner of demonic, occult, black magic, blah, blah, blah. And it just was bad science. From the realm of psychology, we have like gray faction deals with that a lot where there's a just absolutely unscrupulous and scrupulous practices that happen in that field, and individuals that are willing to manipulate people's minds in order to get a certain outcome.

And that was done a lot in reference to satanism.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I mean, they implant false memories and stuff like that. And that's why you brought up gray faction. And that's why I think a satanic panic this time, and I'm going to put a caveat in there.

Unless the extremists win in 2024, then all this shit's out the window, because that'll just become a nightmare. But as long as that doesn't in the current environment right now, let's say it happened today, I think because of TST, because TST is vocal, because TST will challenge things in court, they will not be as successful. Because before in the satanic panic, just due to the way that the church of Satan works, they don't challenge anything.

It's like they just kind of stay put or quiet about it, because they're like, well, we don't believe religion belongs in government. Yeah, cool. I agree with that, but they're doing it.

So you should at least speak up. And the only person really had speaking up during the satanic panic was Michael Aquino, who would go on Oprah or Geraldo every once in a while.

[Lilin Lavin]
People would come out and say things and so would Blanche. And so, you know, different individuals within the community did come out and they went on these public platforms and- To a point. They did.

Aquino, I think, lent a lot more credence to and validity to the counterbalance from these voices that were making these claims, because the military, which he was a part of, has such strict record keeping. And so he could point to logs that would countermand claims made by individuals trying to say, you know, these rituals happened and these things happened and these people were there. And he could say, actually, no, and here's my proof.

So that was a nice thing, besides the fact that he was a decorated, respected individual.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, he would show up sometimes in his full dress, you know.

[Lilin Lavin]
Right, and say what you will about that. It shows that this is a person that had respect, that had done things and built for themselves that career, that individual actually mattered in that.

[Tommy Lavin]
Well, they had to pass a bunch of top secret, you know, I mean, so- Clearances and things.

[Lilin Lavin]
But again, I'm not going to give more fodder to the conspiratorial nonsense. But these people did go out on a limb and try to kind of start showing that this is crap and here's how we know that, you know. So today you have a lot of public Satanists, Satanists in many different jobs, in many different walks of life, from many different communities.

You know, people of, we have Satanists of Color Coalition that just kind of broaches all manner of community. So we have representation through so much of society and not just in the United States. So the hope is, if we were to go down that road, it would be counteracted by that much more prevalent societal acceptance.

And you see that with what happened for Iowa. I think that the fact that they were able to go ahead and say, it is a hate crime, here's why it's a hate crime, despite the fact that, you know, it's not mainstream acceptance level exactly. It's sort of on that, it teeters.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. I mean, but I still, I saw even Christian saying- It was wrong. This is wrong because this is protected.

You know, this is a crime. And again, because TST will put a lawsuit against somebody, that doesn't mean they're going to win the lawsuit, but they'll at least give it, you know, they'll at least give it a try. They're going to put it out there.

Now you can't help if you get a judge that's, you know, prejudiced or something like that in whatever way, but, you know, to at least try and hold them accountable and say, no, this is against the constitution. This is illegal. You can't do that.

We're going to press a lawsuit against you for that. I think, and again, this is my opinion, I think would make the potential satanic panic not as successful as the last one was.

[Lilin Lavin]
I mean, I agree. And then you, and I caveat that with the fact that this is not a theoretical thing. We're watching it happen in real time.

The legislation, like 1279 in Arizona, it brings up a lot of questions about where does the government have a right to determine the legitimacy of religious beliefs and practices? What is, what is the line? And then you look at places like Texas, where we are, where we're seeing in real time, the issues with whether or not, you know, they're going to comply with federal versus state, where you have the issue with the border.

Yeah. So where governments are happy and content to egg one another on, because there's many state, you know, politicians that are out there doing it and saying, you know, thumb your nose at the federal government, don't comply with what they're asking. Don't give access to federal agents to these areas.

And to the point where Texas National Guard actually is flying, come and take it flag. I mean, that's just, it's disgusting. And so, yes, I agree that we have these checks and balances.

Yes, I think that for the most part, it is being upheld and recognized. I do feel like even when people don't necessarily like Satanism or Satanist in the idea of them, at least, they still understand that there is a protection there. And it does have other consequences if they just say, No, this group doesn't have those rights.

[Tommy Lavin]
Right. And, you know, Lucian's been very public. He's gone on Fox, he's gone on, you know, plenty of news sites to explain what Satanism is.

So again, they might not like it. But I think and when I say they, I mean, the general public, I don't mean the extremists. I think the general public has a little better understanding that, no, Satanists are not the boogeyman who come in the night and steal your cat and sacrifice it and take babies and do all of that sort of stuff.

That's, you know, either made up or psychopathic stuff. You know, it's not Satanism. It's just, you know, no matter whether you look at TST, COS, TOS, all of them very much against harming children very much against harming animals.

You know, that stuff just doesn't happen. It's completely against their tenants or laws or whatever you want to call them per group.

[Lilin Lavin]
Right. But, you know, it's going to take all of us, I think, to be vigilant, to be advocates. And I think as Satanist, it's very important to be advocates for other beliefs, no matter what.

And that's one of the things I liked. I think you brought it up. I thought other people brought it up.

When the Iowa situation happened in the Capitol and that bafflement display was destroyed, a lot of people came out very boldly and said, well, what if it was a Satanist who did this? How would you feel if they, and immediately people were very angry. And they had, but the thing is, then we said, but look, it's the same thing.

And I personally, as a Satanist, would be pissed. Do I understand the impulse that when you see your displays harmed, you have this natural anger? And there was that sentiment after Cassidy destroyed the bafflement display.

But what I saw overwhelmingly was people saying, I hear you. I understand your anger. I understand your frustration.

I understand your hurt, seeing this happen and wondering what that means for you, for your family, for your life. Because a lot of people were impacted by this. It just kind of compounds fears that people naturally have being on the outside of a lot of what is societally considered normal.

And I think challenging that preconception and saying, we would not appreciate or allow this in our community. We would outright say it's wrong and condemn that individual who decided to commit that. Because not only are they doing a disservice to our community, but they're doing something wrong.

We would be just as mad as we are at Michael Cassidy. Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
And they'd be wrong. Again, I kind of always fall back to when the Satanists put up their display, there was Christian displays already there. They left them alone.

If they would have destroyed them, then yes, that would have been wrong. And I would have been the first to jump up and say, that was not your property. You couldn't destroy it.

Now, if Michael Cassidy wanted to build his own Satanic display and whatever, and then destroy it. Okay, cool. Go for it.

It's your property. You have that right. Just like, we will tear up a Bible or whatever we do, because it's our property.

We bought it. If we stole that from a church and then destroyed it, that would be wrong. I mean, this seems so simple.

But it's like, I get online. I'm like, why do I have to describe something that is so simple a child can understand?

[Lilin Lavin]
It's recurring. It's, you know, outside of the Iowa display, there is also the tree in a private sort of business was the Railroad Museum had a ton of these trees, trees decorated by tons of different individuals for many different representations, lots of them. And TST had one up in that area.

And people were pissed and we had bishops coming out and shouting about it. We had politicians coming out and shouting about it, and people threatening to withhold, you know, funds and aid and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And again, I come back and say, but where's the line?

[Tommy Lavin]
Right? I mean, you know, if you're going to allow other religions to have the displays, then and again, like you said, this was a private business on this one. So I don't even think I mean, the Railroad Museum, I believe they do get some funding.

Yeah, if they get public funding. I don't see that's where this law, I don't know where the lines of this law in Arizona would fall. It's like, too, too vague.

[Lilin Lavin]
It is vague, and maybe intentionally. So I look at the way that they've applied these, these type of laws that are meant to in a way not in a way that are meant to punish that are meant to uphold this very firebrand version of religion kind of pushing into government. I feel like when you look at the language for the overturning of Roe v.

Wade, and the way that it was applied to states that were quickly, you know, fast to adopt the the legislation against abortion, and they were vague, and that vagueness has cost people their fertility, it has cost people nearly their lives, it has harmed, you know, them psychologically, it's caused problems within families, and on and on and on doctors practices at risk, doctors have moved entire clinics from one state to another, including their staff, you watch these things happen, they're intentionally vague. And then the harm that's done to the community, right? Where communities that had great medical practitioners that had wonderful clinics that had good medical teams in certain hospitals, those people have left.

Yeah. And the community pays a price.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I mean, and again, we're kind of teetering, but I see where you're going. You know, it's these laws that they're putting in, it's, it's, you know, law after law after law going after either going after certain religions or promoting a specific religion, the sort of theological, ultimate Christian nation sort of thing.

[Lilin Lavin]
Right. And it's not a right issue, a left issue. It's, it's a societal issue, where we have this undercurrent of ideological extremists that are pushing this on everyone.

And then you have everyone on every other side trying to figure out what does that mean for me? Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
And, and again, when you look at a lot like this, you know, 99% of people say, well, I'm not a satanist, so I don't care. But you should, you know, and that's where there's this disconnect. People aren't quite getting it that if they can do it to them, you know, they can do it to me.

Yeah. And, and that is part you might not like satanists. Good for you.

Great.

[Lilin Lavin]
You are I mean, that's fair. I think a lot of people don't understand what satanists, you know, who they are, what their religion encompasses. They don't stop to ask those questions.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. I mean, most people don't, but again, even if you don't like satanists, you have to be able to look at something like this and say, well, I don't like satanists. I'm a Buddhist or something.

Well, shit. Can they apply this to Buddhism? The answer is if they send one through the answers, yes.

Because once it goes through, once you open that, that box, it's, it's open.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. And I keep bringing it back a lot to the comparatives with what happened with Roe, because it's the same sort of chipping away process that led to that ultimately being removed and the protections going away for individuals because of that. And then the continued assault where, you know, now you have people trying to double down with blocking state travel and, and, you know, going after people.

So when you get into this religious realm, how far into that do they go? Do they start limiting what shirts you can wear in public?

[Tommy Lavin]
Am I going to get, am I going to get arrested or something? Because I'm wearing my, my hail Satan shirt.

[Lilin Lavin]
Right. And again, I mean, there's, there's a congregate, there's congregants in Arizona. There's a healthy satanic community in Arizona.

I know some of these people go out and do things in their, you know, TST stuff or satanic themed stuff. What does that mean for them?

[Tommy Lavin]
Right. Right. I mean, because as I read through this, I was like.

Intentionally vague. Intentionally vague. Okay.

Well, again, I'm, I'm all for removing all religion from public spaces. But what I'm not okay with is if you allow one religion or only allowing one religion or one type of religion, no, it's either all or none. It's that simple.

[Lilin Lavin]
I'm not fine with them taking away from public spaces. I am not fine with all religion being removed. I'm not even fine with Christianity, which, you know, I don't, I don't like the fundamental aspects of it.

I'm not fine with it being removed from public spaces because I don't care if you wear a Jesus shirt, I don't care, but that's what, that's where it gets weird for me is what is a public space by definition.

[Tommy Lavin]
Okay. So for me, I'm more talking about like putting, you know, I'm, I'm all for removing, you know, the 10 commandments from public spaces. I'm all for removing crosses.

And when you say public space, you mean like schools and okay. Yeah. Schools, things like that.

And I know public spaces is very vague. So I understand what you're saying. And I agree with you.

I'm not necessarily, I'm, I am totally not okay with, you know, saying what kind of clothes somebody wears or jewelry or anything like that. And, but if you're going to say, well, we have God in our courtrooms, we have, you know, the 10 commandments here we have where we allow displays around, you know, the end of the year for Christians. Well, if you allow that, you have to allow, you can't ban other religions that you don't like.

That's just not, we're not in a theocracy yet, but the yet. Let's just avoid that entirely. Because again, I go back to this year could kind of determine whether it is a yet or not.

[Lilin Lavin]
Well, yeah, that gets really funky because even if you do suddenly just decide this is the way it's going to be, I don't know that that, you know, it's let's, let's hope we don't have to decide how that's going to work and look through it. But, you know, again, I come back to what we're seeing right now, where all these people are thumbing their nose at, you know, legal discourse and fighting again, federal versus state. We've got all these people that came down to Texas to do all this.

Oh, yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
The Yahoo's at the border. I mean, they brought the God convey and all of that sort of shit.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah, it was interesting to watch people that that realized that these were not great people kind of talking about that. But, you know, that's a discussion for the day. But the thing that is interesting that intersecting here is when you've got these religious challenges that are happening, and you've got people with this very broad definition of Christianity, and these very different ideas of what makes one a Christian, it's the same kind of thing, you start to see them attack one another in this very nasty, hateful way, if it's not in line with a specific political ideology, where, you know, is that going to become the way things move, if it's not the right kind of Christian.

So it's not just Satanist.

[Tommy Lavin]
No, they're at the risk. It's not. I've seen a lot of arguments that the right kind of Christian is a white Christian man.

Yeah, period. And I mean, I was like, wow, you actually said that out loud.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah, well, you get like, people like Mike Johnson, who is the current Speaker of the House, very boldly and proudly proclaims that he was told by God that this is what he was going to do. And I find that incredibly concerning, because it speaks one to his character, and two to his mental stability. So either he's not well, or he's completely just a fraud.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I mean, because if, well, that goes into a whole different, I mean, yeah, often the line, they're really, when you see religious, anybody religious saying they hear voices or talk to their, you know, at that point, I that sort of, for me, crosses into mental illness,

[Lilin Lavin]
but that's another concerning, I mean, but, you know, like, we went on a hike at one point, and I would joke, you know, when I would see different paths, because there's a lot of gross and mud and slick things on the main path.

And I said, Well, nature is telling me to go this way. And you know, I would make that joke, because I'd see the path that other animals that know the area better had taken. I'm like, No, I'm not going to slip slide down this muddy path, I'm going to go this route.

But I would joke and say, nature's telling me I need to go and do this other thing. And honestly, it's not telling me anything. So if you're, if you're using religion and saying, you know, my gut instinct based on my religious belief is, you know, God's telling me this, under that notion, okay, I kind of get what you're saying.

I don't, I don't hold that against you, if that's the way that you want to interpret that. But when you tell me I'm literally being told by the voice of God, that these are things that I should or shouldn't do. And I was given this, I was ordained or, yeah.

So whenever, when you start getting mad at people that are just putting up displays in a place or that are, you know, wanting, if you have prayer in, you know, before a city council meeting, right? Where they come in, and they say, well, part of our community is Satanism. We'd like to be able to come in and do an invocation so that we're represented as part of the community that pays the taxes that helps with the voting that's part of the legal system here.

We'd like to be part of that too. And I feel that it should be a very simple, okay, can we look at the invocation? That seems pretty innocuous.

Fine, go for it. But it doesn't ever work that way. No, you y'all had to fight.

Oh, my gosh.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, Lance nail in order to for for Lance to be able to do his invocation.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah, Lance of her and I have to really commend him because everybody showed up to that in San Marcos is not a huge town in Texas. He pushed for that for a long period of time. There's a lot of back and forth and even spoke with the mayor who you know, waffled a bit on this that and the other but ultimately agreed it was the right thing to do.

But then like the people that did the Trump train came out to come and protest him community members after he did the invocation, which again, you will never see this when a prayer happens, came up to pray away invocation, which again, we don't believe in literal deities, folks. So you can't pray away something we're not. It doesn't work.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. But again, that's, it's just such a disrespect, because it's like, okay, you get your turn, you get your turn without any questions. Nobody asks you a damn question.

Oh, you want to do a prayer before this? Okay, cool. You can do that.

But the minute a Satanist goes to do it, it's a big battle, a whole war. And then once they get the approval, anyways, then you have people trying to yell over them or drowned out the invocation, or like you said, when they're done, then do their prayer. Well, okay, the last time you prayed, you didn't say, see a Satanist say, okay, now that your prayers done, I'm going to do an invocation over your prayer to bind Jesus in Satan's shackles.

[Lilin Lavin]
That would be a nightmare. Could you imagine just the constant? Would you even get anything done?

They'd have to limit back and forth. Oh, well, now that you did that, I'm going to pray again.

[Tommy Lavin]
I'm going to invocate right back over your prayer that you invocated over my prayer that I prayed over your invocation.

[Lilin Lavin]
But then it goes into even the afterschool Satan clubs, you know, the good news clubs are all over the place. There's thousands of them just throughout the United States. And they get angry when TST says, well, if you're going to offer these spaces for religious practice to come in and provide these afterschool non curriculum based religious conversations, then you know, we want to be there to people lose their mind.

Nobody in TST is after school program is preaching about Satan to children for the like, million time, they go in and they do things like learning about physics in small, very basic structural ways learning about aeronautics, talking about science, I mean, basically is science, it's community is learning about your place in community and how to be a decent human being and to to just be someone that is functional in society. It's not about, you know, and I counteract with this, because in Christian based good news clubs, they're telling kids are going to hell for sin, that they're going to be separated from people they loved because Jesus, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And john, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, and blah, blah, blah, blah. But these kids are being told, you know, this sacra this person died for you to me, that's child abuse.

[Tommy Lavin]
When you when you when you go to indoctrinate a child, and you scare the hell out of them, right, literally, wasn't supposed to be in order to, you know, in order to convert them, you tell them that they won't see their parents again, and shit like that. I mean, that's religious trauma that is that is traumatic for a child. And that is that is a form of abuse.

And but again, like you said, with the after school Satan Again, TST doesn't never, never goes in first. No, there's always something else. Therefore, so it's like, well, if they have the right to do that, then we also have that same right.

And that's where it seems so fucking simple. I don't understand why this is so fucking hard for people.

[Lilin Lavin]
I don't know. And it's the same thing when it comes to GSA, which is the gay straight alliance when they're in schools. And again, most of the time, it's it's later end of middle school and high school only.

Because that's when kids are really starting to explore who they are who they're attracted to, how they personally, you know, experience the world of love life, dating and all that stuff. I agree that there's a time where it's more or less appropriate. And before then it should be a healthy conversations happening at home.

But the problem comes where they won't allow this representation. There are gay kids, I guarantee you in almost every school, including the very remote rural ones, they should have somewhere to go and have these very normal conversations in a healthy, constructive way. I don't agree with child grooming.

I don't think that you should be presenting kids with the idea that you are this or you are that whether it's religion, whether it's, you know, the kind of job you have to have, whether it's, you know, the kind of marriage you have to have, whatever it is, it's good to have a foundational understanding of what it means and to be able to build on that as an individual. But I don't feel that people should be able to tell you who you are and how you have to live. And that's why these things should be available.

So if you're going to offer religious options, offer religious options. If you're going to offer, you know, health clubs, have health clubs that encompass different types of health, you know, if you're going to have art clubs, blah, blah, blah. But when it comes to religion, to say that Satanism is this horrible, damaging, dangerous, unhealthy thing that you're exposing kids to, explain to me how telling people that a person died for you, so that you have to behave yourself and be this best, best person, so that when you die, you can go someplace great, how that is at all healthy or constructive.

[Tommy Lavin]
And it's, you know, well, it's not I mean, but at the end of the day, you know, again, I'm, I'm out for, you know, fine, if that's your belief, that's that's your belief. And all that, but you can't ban, I just kind of always circle back to if you're going to allow one, you have to allow the other. And sometimes that means you have to allow things that you don't like, right?

You know, some of the you hear so often from the MAGA, the conservative, all of them, Kitty's got an opinion about, you know, snowflakes and feelings being hurt. But it's like, well, you know, really, this is this is really about your feelings. You know, when you look at a law like this, this boils down to, they don't like, you know, they don't, they don't like Satanism.

So it bothers their feelings. And so they're going to pass a law that is, you know, hypocritical.

[Lilin Lavin]
It is, and it's ongoing, you just continue to see that same sort of argument in many realms, whether it's the kind of books you can read the kind of history, you can learn the kind of religion that will or will not be accepted in the public sphere, it kind of goes on, and on and on. And what I would like to see is people say, I don't have to agree with it. And my job as a, as a person is to provide the other side of it, if I really feel so compelled, if I have kids in school, and I don't like the learning about certain types of history, I can then provide them an alternative information with books with conversations.

That's kind of the job of a parent. And but when it comes to the bigger scope, we should be providing as much opportunity to learn the diverse reality. And that's where I think this kind of banning outright something we don't like becomes really concerning.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I mean, there's so level, so many levels of concerning, but again, like, like we were saying, you know, this is so vague. Again, it pulls into, if I wear my shirt, and I step on into a government building, am I, you know, am I and something going to happen to me?

[Lilin Lavin]
You know, if you wear if you go to vote, and you wear something of a political opponent, I mean, I get it to a degree where sometimes it's not appropriate to wear certain things. I still feel a little weird if a shirt forces you to forces you to vote a certain way.

[Tommy Lavin]
But it's got to be both sides, right? You know, it's like, Okay, look, we're just outright banning. When you go to do this, we're outright banning this.

Cool. If it's both sides and that, okay, you know, but you can't say, well, you can wear, you know, this Trump shirt, but you can't wear a Biden shirt when you go to vote. Yeah, you know, that's just, it's, again, I just kind of go back to this.

This is so fucking simple.

[Lilin Lavin]
I just respect the fact that other people aren't going to live, think or be like you. And as long as they're respecting your privacy, your consent, your bodily autonomy, all the things that we constantly harp about, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how they choose to live or relationship or believe, because ultimately, it doesn't change what you choose to do with your life.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I think we've kind of beat it probably beat this one to death.

So I think we could probably hear wind up rapping, but it just if you go look, you know, again, it's the Senate Bill SB 1279 in Arizona. And, you know, take a look at that. And honestly, think, would I be okay with this?

If it was something else, you know, and if the answer's no, then, you know, and, you know, the scary part is, will this happen in other states? Yeah, I think yes.

[Lilin Lavin]
And I think that that's where all people that are, you know, allies or involved in Satanism, it's, this is a time to start being very aware, and to support each other. Because at the end of the day, like we continually say, if it happens to one, it will happen to others. And if we don't draw a line somewhere, then it just goes to the point where it's almost not easy to push back against anymore.

And so we have a lot of ways in the community to have these conversations, to watch what legislators are doing to write letters, when you see these things happening, like what happened in Iowa, you can write letters, you can send that in, the judges there are still working through that, you know, you can send letters into them, about how this situation made you feel, you can send letters into Arizona, to let those individuals know how you feel about this type of legislation, and why you feel that it's wrong.

And again, you don't have to be a Satanist to do that. If you love freedoms that we have, if you actually really love the Constitution, and the things that it provides for us as a society, this is where you get involved. And you say, this is what I'm seeing.

This is what I don't like about it. And this is what I want you to do about it. And believe it or not, the that begins to compound.

[Tommy Lavin]
And it actually does sway people to change their perspective, people's voices, people's voices in the past people's voices have worked.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. And I think we've, we've kind of let things slide for a while. And I think this is the time now to start putting our foot down and saying no, we draw the line here.

[Tommy Lavin]
And now, yeah, sorry, Star Trek reference there for anybody.

[Lilin Lavin]
Okay, Jean-Luc Picard is awesome, because Patrick Stewart's awesome. So all right.

[Tommy Lavin]
Well, I think with the here and now we will end now here and now for everybody have a good evening. Good day. Good morning, wherever you're at in the world and hail Satan.

[Lilin Lavin]
Hail you hail Satan.