The Satanic Temple sues to make abortion a religious right. Fundamentalist Christians react badly.

Author’s noteNothing in this diary should be considered a condemnation of any Christian privately practicing their faith. Any hostility expressed to organized Christianity here is merely a declaration of the author’s abhorrence for any group demanding the rest of us live by that group’s rules — or that America should be subject to their personal but unconstitutional opinions of the country’s nature — whether that organization be Christian nationalists, neo-Nazis, the KKK, or any other hate group.The DiaryWhat do Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church and the Satanic Temple have in common? They are both recognized as religions by the IRS. By the length of time doing business and by the number of customers, Christianity may like to think it is somehow superior. But according to the Constitution, the two are equal in the eyes of the law. And it is driving Christian Nationalists and other fundamentalist Bible-thumpers bananas.Originally conceived to go wherever aggressive Christians dared to overstep, the Satanic Temple has now declared abortion an official ritual in its religion. The Temple has sued several states to have their adherents’ right to terminate a pregnancy legally recognized. To that end, the Temple has expanded its mission to thwart Christian overreach with a campaign to support women’s civil reproductive rights — by making choice a religious right.As Arwa Mahdawi reports in the Guardian:“Over the years, the Satanic Temple has taken on issues like prayer in the classroom, after-class Bible study groups, and the distribution of Bibles in schools.Now, for obvious reasons, it’s increasingly turning its not-so-evil eye to abortion rights. Last year, it opened an online abortion clinic in New Mexico called The Samuel Alito’s Mom’s Satanic Abortion Clinic, in reference to the conservative justice who wrote the majority opinion that overturned Roe v Wade.“In 1950, Samuel Alito’s mother did not have options, and look what happened,” Malcolm Jarry, co-founder of the Satanic Temple said at the time.”The Satanic Temple sanctifies abortion as a core part of its religious beliefs by asking women to recite a ritual — “By my body, my blood, by my will, it is done” — before taking abortion pills, to ward off “unjust persecution”. It is a mete and proper continuation of millennia-old religious campaigns to support and elevate people who have been ground under the heel of sadistic totalitarianismIt is the latest stop on a line that can be drawn from the Old Testament charge that the immigrant (outsider) be granted hospitality and acceptance. To Jesus’ demand of care and respect for the “least of these.” To enlightened Christianity’s fight for slavery’s abolition. To the progressive religious support for the 60-year, and ongoing, struggle for civil rights — which now includes a woman’s right to bodily autonomy.Predictably, entrenched reactionary religious bigots are fighting to resist challenges to their dictatorial dreams. Blind to irony, they paint The Satanic Temple with the dismal brush of their own hypocrisy.The Christian Research Institute, an evangelical group, characterized the leaders of this rights-driven religion as “troll lords.” And added that they were “exploiting their cartoonishly dark and villainous branding to agitate the public and pester the Christian Right into a judicial showdown.” Dear God, is there anything more “cartoonishly dark and villainous” than the smears the religious right uses to tar LGBTQ, feminists, and immigrants?It is not the Satanic Temple that says of legal Haitian immigrants: “They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats.” And who is buying literal cartoons of an impossibly buff Trump in a superhero costume?And if fundamentalist Christians are worried about lawsuits, they should stop breaking the law.The Guardian piece ends thus:“That showdown may be forthcoming because the Satanic Temple has just opened its second telehealth abortion clinic, this time in Virginia. It’s called the Right to Your Life Satanic Abortion Clinic.“We’re also actively working to increase access in other states, including taking legal action in restrictive states such as Indiana and Idaho to provide religious abortion services there as well,” the temple said in a statement.Truly, they are doing the Lord’s work.”Amen.