The Satanic Temple Doesn't Understand Religious Liberty

 

If you made it past the headline, then you're already invested in the abortion argument.

One of the overarching themes of the Supreme Court’s recent term was that it was surprisingly liberal on several major issues: upholding gay rights, striking down an abortion restriction, and rejecting the President’s request to be immune from having to turn over his financial records. All of this is true, but that doesn’t make this Court liberal. Rather, despite these rulings, this is still a very conservative court. And one area this has been evident is religious freedom.

Don't you see??? Upholding gay rights, striking down an abortion restriction, and rejecting the President's request to avoid turning over financial records means nothing for the Court's ideological makeup since a few religious liberty cases were decided in favor of Christians! Nevermind that all three of those "liberal" decisions were decided on very tenuous grounds that ignore common law and common sense.

Enter The Satanic Temple. The Satanic Temple is a religion that believes in benevolence and empathy among all people, rejects tyrannical authority, and advocates for common sense and justice. For years now, The Satanic Temple has fought to expand religious liberty notions that the conservative Supreme Court has applied to Christians to apply to its members as well.

Fair enough. Though I think this is little more than a parody religion akin to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I take no issue with "expanding religious liberty" beyond the narrow scope in SCOTUS decisions.

Particularly, The Satanic Temple has fought this battle over abortion. The third tenet of the religion is “One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.” Thus, The Satanic Temple claims that the obstacle course of abortion restrictions that states impose on the procedure should not apply to its members because doing so violates their sincerely-held religious beliefs. As the church’s reproductive rights spokeswoman puts it, “No Christian would tolerate a law that insists state counseling is necessary before someone can be baptized. Our members are justly entitled to religious liberty in order to practice our rituals as well.” (emphasis added)

And here we have the flaw in the underlying premise. Abortion advocates deny the will of the child to live, as does The Satanic Temple. "One's body is inviolable, subject to one's own will alone, except when that one is an unborn child, in which case its will is superseded by the mother's will." With such a convoluted interpretation that deviates from the plain meaning of the critical text, maybe The Satanic Temple really is a religion.

The Satanic Temple is trying to use these laws and this movement to exempt its members from abortion laws. The argument is the same as Hobby Lobby’s, though it’s about state abortion laws rather than federal insurance laws. (emphasis added)

The exact same! One party wants to kill unborn children and the other wants to avoid funding the killing of unborn children. Totes samesies!

In other words, The Satanic Temple is taking the Christian right’s crusade for religious liberty seriously and saying that if it’s good for Christianity, it has to be good for everyone. It’s only a matter of time before the Supreme Court answers the question whether they actually believe in religious liberty for all.

Again, this is where there is a massive disconnect. Employment Division v. Smith was wrongly decided because despite what the SCOTUS declared, an anti-peyote smoking law seems to pretty clearly target the Native American tribes that were smoking peyote as part of religious ceremonies. Who the hell else was really smoking peyote? But peyote smoking does not harm other individuals, so the practice of this activity should not have been restricted. Abortion very clearly harms another party, and it is only through mendacity that someone can argue that is not the case. Should a Molech-worshiping religion be allowed to sacrifice children because of their religious liberty? Should a religion devoted to the Third Reich be allowed to kill Jews because of their religious liberty? It's an asinine argument to say that this is "just like the Christian cases for religious liberty" when a central premise of your argument ignores the infringement of another being's rights.

Many abortion advocates, and likely The Satanic Temple, like to argue that a human fetus is "just a clump of cells" or even a parasite on the mother. Scientific studies show that the relationship between mother and child is actually more symbiotic: when one feels pain, the other does as well, evidenced by a spike in heart rate. A tumor or other cancerous growth may be made of human DNA, but a human fetus is made up of two unique DNA: the mother's and the father's. A human fetus can only grow into a human; it can't become an elephant, or a nematode, or a mushroom. Could a fetus survive outside of the mother prior to the typical 21-week mark of viability? Probably not, but neither could any child younger than 2, an invalid, a severely disabled person, or any number of other human beings of whom we have no issue protecting their life.

The issue of abortion has always been one that is wrapped up in multiple layers, and the legal one is often the least important. When does life begin? At what point do rights attach to a human being? What characteristics does a human being possess that distinguish it from all other life? These ethical and moral questions are ignored by abortion advocates who focus only agency before shifting to the legality of abortion. And until they are willing to confront these hard questions, they stand on very weak and shallow ground when it comes to religious liberty.