‘Parents need to wake up’: Advocates sound alarm about Satanist after-school clubs sprouting across the country

(Daily Caller) – The Satanic Temple (TST) made headlines in 2022 for fighting for the right to create after-school clubs for students and has recently been launching new groups across the country,…

(Daily Caller) – The Satanic Temple (TST) made headlines in 2022 for fighting for the right to create after-school clubs for students and has recently been launching new groups across the country, raising concerns for religious advocates about the potential impact Satanism may have on students’ perception of faith.

A TST “After-School Satan Club” was approved in December 2022 at a Virginia elementary school, provoking many parents, who were disturbed by the push to indoctrinate children into Satanism, to protest the club, according to RealClearEducation. TST has announced the formation of multiple new clubs in New York, Pennsylvania and Colorado in just the past month and religious advocates have taken note of the trend, telling the Daily Caller News Foundation that the normalization of Satanism could be detrimental to students later in life.

“A satanic club is the antithesis of religion,” Penny Nance, CEO and president of Concerned Women for America, the nation’s largest women’s public policy organization, told the DCNF. “Groups like this have free speech rights but Satanism is not a religion. The fact that there are more of these clubs popping up means kids are searching for something to believe in.”

“The decision to promote the Satanic Temple in schools is a concerning development in districts across the country,” Delano Squires, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family. “This group has no more ‘right’ to students and schools as a Neo-Nazi club demanding representation. Schools should use wisdom and discernment with regard to decisions related to extracurricular activities.”

TST argued on its Twitter account that an upcoming vote at a Virginia school would determine whether its club should be on “equal footing” with other school groups, particularly religious clubs.