A city council meeting in Texas was recently the site of lively protest after a Satanist was slated to deliver the opening invocation.
About 100 people of various Christian denominations and faiths showed up to the San Marcos City Council meeting to object to the reading from Lanzifer Eligos Longinus, a representative of the Satanic Temple, as the San Antonio Express-News reported.
The Express-News reported that while Longinus’ invocation was read without interruption, a few protesters responded when the words were closed with “Hail Satan!”
Outside, protesters chanted, prayed, and held signs objecting to the Satanic reading.
“I find it very ironic because I'm all about religious freedom, even their religious freedom,” Longinus told the newspaper. “That's why I encourage people of other religious minorities to do the same thing that I've done today, so that way they can express their voice.”
So too did some of the Christians on the ground believe Longinus had a right to be there.
“We do not plan to protest the satanic invocation itself,” Tristen Cleve of the Citizens Defending Freedom told Todd Starnes ahead of the council meeting. “Just like all Americans, satanists have a right to speak and worship as they choose, though we certainly disagree with them.”
He added that “as a group that harbors traditional morals and Christian values, we will be there to pray that God’s presence is present and that we are asking for healing for this town and that God’s spirit be with the council members. And with the satanists that are here to pray to their deity that they find God. The future of our community and of our nation depends on it.”
The Satanic Temple is a thinly veiled activist group that ultimately seeks to push the boundaries of publicly recognized religion to extend to Satanists as well.
They have filed lawsuits seeking to protect their “right” to abortion “rituals,” worked to construct Baphomet statues on public property, and organized after-school “Satan clubs” for public school students, cheekily arguing that if Christians have a right to such institutions in American public life, so ought every other religion including symbolic and actual worship of Satan.
Link: Satanist Delivers Invocation at Texas City Council Meeting, Sparking Protests
A piece in the New York Times last week highlighted the voices of “detransitioners” whose voices have been used in favor of laws banning so-called “gender-affirming” treatments for minors, arguing that the minority of their voices makes Republican-backed legislation unfair.
Reporter Maggie Astor focuses on formerly transgender activist Chole Cole and “fewer than 10 activists like her” which she laments have been made the voice of the GOP cause seeking to restrict such treatments for minors.
“As Republican-controlled state legislatures have passed over a dozen bills banning transition care for minors this year and have moved to restrict care for adults,” she writes. “Ms. Cole and fewer than 10 activists like her — people who transitioned and then changed course — have become the faces of the cause, according to a New York Times review of news coverage and legislative testimony.”
Astor argues that Cole and her cohorts represent such a small minority compared to medical industry interest groups and transgender individuals as to be unfairly representative of the issues being discussed when trans treatment for minors is being legislated.
“Their stories of regret and irreversible physical transformation have tapped into strong emotions about rapidly shifting gender norms — from hardened prejudice to parental worry,” her report notes. “Lawmakers have used these accounts to override objections from all major medical associations, which oppose bans on transition care, as well as testimony from the far larger number of transgender people who say transitioning improved their mental health.”
Astor quotes one 17-year-old in Missouri who reports a positive experience with transitioning and claims that Republican lawmakers “don’t really care” when hearing testimonies in favor of gender-affirming treatments for youth.
No mention is made of how Democrat lawmakers respond to testimonies from detransitioners like Cole.
Link: New York Times Undermines “Detransitioners” Who Shares Stories of Trans Regret
Parents at a Texas elementary school were outraged after allegations that a 6-year-old girl was forced to perform a sex act on a fellow student while another child filmed the incident on a school iPad.
A protest was held outside the Plainview, Texas school district administration building after the situation came to light, demanding answers.
According to the cousin of the alleged victim, the school district found a video of the attack on the school iPad and opened an investigation but does not appear to have informed the little girl’s family.
Heather Gonzalez says that it was only when she noticed a change in her cousin’s behavior that the child told her what had happened.
The girl said that her desk mates had pulled her under a desk and assaulted her as she fought back, something which the sick video evidence reportedly confirmed.
However, according to Gonzalez, although the school found out about and began to investigate the incident the following day, they were not forthcoming with the girl’s family and she remained seated next to the two boys.
“Everything was ‘no comment. I cannot tell you. No comment,’” Gonzales told KCBD. “So, you mean to tell me abuse has been happening for a week and a half and these kids are still at the same desk. My cousin is still at a desk with all boys, having to see her abusers every day.”