This newsletter is free and goes out to over 26,000 subscribers, but it’s only able to sustain itself due to the support I receive from a small percentage of regular readers. Would you please consider becoming one of those supporters? You can subscribe via Patreon or the Subscribe button below! You can also make one-time donations through Venmo, CashApp, or PayPal.
Iowa state officials will have to allow the The Satanic Temple to host an event at the State Capitol this winter after a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction in the Satanists’ favor. The group filed a lawsuit back in August arguing that state officials were discriminating against them.
All of this began in 2023. In December of that year, a Satanic display went up in the Capitol alongside a Nativity scene. Gov. Kim Reynolds called the innocuous display “absolutely objectionable.”
A Christian zealot, Michael Cassidy, soon vandalized the display and was later charged with a hate crime. (He eventually pleaded guilty to a lesser crime to avoid felony charges.)
Despite all that, the Satanists have continued to be punished over the whole debacle, with one GOP lawmaker even filing a bill to ban Satanic displays on public property. While that bill didn’t go anywhere, administration officials have found their own ways to prevent Satanic displays from appearing in the Capitol.
The way they’ve done it has been downright sneaky.
For example, the Satanic Temple of Iowa planned to hold a marathon four-day reading of John Milton’s 1667 epic poem “Paradise Lost” inside the Capitol in 2024. But as soon as they filed the paperwork, the Iowa Department of Administrative Services announced that it was changing its rules for who could use the Capitol space. From now on, events couldn’t last longer than one day, and no group could hold “more than one event per calendar year.”
That one-day limit, the officials told the Satanists, would also apply to holiday displays in the future… meaning if the Satanists held a reading of “Paradise Lost” in the Capitol, they would be prohibited from erecting a display in December.
(In fact, a different group, the Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers, hoped to put a holiday display in the Capitol in 2024, but their application was rejected because they held a “Reason on the Hill” lobbying event in the building that January. In other words, they inadvertently used up their allotted yearly slot based on rules that went into effect several months later.)
The same agreement included another section that prohibited any Capitol displays that might be seen as “obscene.”
Were those rules changed directly because of the Satanists’ request? Who got to decide which displays were obscene, offensive, or worthy of value? No one knew.
In any case, the Satanists held their reading event at a different location to avoid being shut out during the holidays.
But when December came around in 2024, they were shut out anyway.
They planned to hold a one-day holiday celebration at the Capitol—and filled out the necessary paperwork—only to have the event canceled at the last second because a state official declared their presence would be “harmful to minors.”
“After careful consideration of administrative rule and [Iowa Department of Administrative Services] DAS policy, I determined the totality of the event request to include elements that are harmful to minors and therefore denied the request,” DAS director Adam Steen, the director of the Iowa DAS, said in a statement provided to the Des Moines Register.
Steen didn’t specify what the objectionable elements were or how they could be harmful to minors.
At one point, Steen explained the concern: There were going to be “costumes with sticks used as weapons on children.” As if Satanists were going to harm children by beating them with sticks. (Not only was that never part of the plan, it’s deeply ironic because that’s quite literally what white evangelicals like James Dobson urge parents to do to their children.)
Gov. Reynolds later echoed those lies about how the event would harm children:
“The Iowa State Capitol Complex is a place that is open to the public, where children and families routinely visit,” the governor said. “Because of this, the state’s event policy takes into consideration conduct that would be harmful to minors. This satanic event, which specifically targets children, is harmful to minors and so it was denied.”
Again, there was no explanation of how the holiday celebration would be harmful.
None of it made any sense.
The Satanic Temple Iowa threatened to file a lawsuit in 2025 over this bigotry, but they never actually did it. Over the summer, however, the ACLU of Iowa filed a civil rights complaint on behalf of the Satanists with the Iowa Civil Rights Commission.
The complaint alleges in denying the application, the state wrongly alleged the celebration would have included sex acts, gore, and similar content and was not suitable for minors.
The looming question, then, was whether 2025 would be any different. Would the state still fight the Satanists or would they see the furor dying down and just let it slide?
Take a wild guess.
That year, the Iowa Department of Administrative Services once again blocked the Satanists from hosting their event in the Capitol or having any kind of celebration inside, claiming that it would be harmful to minors. (Again, no evidence of this was offered.)
In fact, Adam Steen, who was running to become governor (but lost in the GOP primary), held a press conference last November as part of his apparent victory-against-Satan tour:
… This is a tipping point. One of the most divisive issues in the state over the last couple of years, and the attempts of the so-called “Satanic Church,” has been denied yet again. No more marketing to children. No more trying to get them to create Satanic symbols, sing Satanic hymns, partake in Satanic rituals. No more having youth involved in costume contests that depict weapons used to abuse youth. This is not religious expression. It’s not free speech. It is evil.
…
We did it. We stood up. We got the denial that we wanted. And I’m proud to say that good, again, has defeated evil. Denying this event will protect our children. Our children deserve that. Thank you. God bless you. God bless the great state of Iowa…
Elsewhere in that video, he said he was the “only candidate being sued by the Satanists.” That was a lie. The Satanic Temple hadn’t sued him, and if any reporter cared to press him on that, they would have known he’s lying.
After his bloviating was over, Steen was asked what was so offensive about the proposed Satanic event. He evaded the question and said “Any content that goes towards the soul of children, and that fights against the good that are inside of children, is evil and needs to be flushed out. Anything that rips away hope from children. Anything that… raises up this Satanic name is evil for children. And I will always fight for children to keep that out of their way.”
He was also asked what, if any, other religious beliefs might be “harmful to children.” His response? “Anything that is not God first.”
Seemed like a blatant case of religious discrimination. He was just defining religious symbols he didn’t like as inherently evil without explaining how they were harmful. Even though, if kids followed the Seven Fundamental Tenets of The Satanic Temple, they would be far more ethical than children raised in conservative Christianity.
That’s why, after years of Iowa officials creating piles of evidence of religious discrimination, the Satanic Temple of Iowa finally fought back.
Their federal lawsuit went after Steen (“in his individual capacity”), Mark Campbell (who took over Steen’s job as Director of the Iowa Department of Administrative Services), and the Iowa Department of Administrative Services. The Plaintiffs included The Satanic Temple and Mortimer Adramelech, who runs TST’s Iowa affiliate.
In addition to laying out much of what I’ve written here, the lawsuit noted that this past March, the Satanists submitted paperwork to host their event in December… and had yet to receive a response. That was over 160 days before they filed their lawsuit. The reason for the delay was glaringly obvious.
… Defendants have discriminated against TST-Iowa by denying them services and public accommodations, both (1) on the basis of their religion and/or their perception of their religion and (2) in retaliation for their prior reports of discrimination.
There is a pattern and practice of Defendants delaying, denying, or failing to respond to applications by the Plaintiffs. There is no reason to expect this pattern to change, or expect that Defendants will actually allow TST-Iowa to hold their 2026 holiday event at the Rotunda absent intervention by this Court.
The lawsuit said the state violated the Satanists’ “federal constitutional rights to free speech, free exercise of religion, and equal protection under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.” They also wanted the courts to end these violations and allow The Satanic Temple to move forward with their event, along with forcing the state to pay whatever amount the court deemed fit in damages.
It was such a clear-cut case of religious discrimination:
“It is a foundational principle that the government should not favor one religious belief over another or discriminate against its citizens based on their religious beliefs,” said Rita Bettis Austen, legal director of the ACLU of Iowa. “So that means when the state makes the public space in the Capitol rotunda available for these religious holiday events — for example, a Christmas event or a Hanukkah event — it cannot then deny that same right to other religious groups that it disfavors.”
And yesterday, a federal court finally weighed in.
U.S. District Judge Stephanie Rose (an Obama nominee) issued a preliminary injunction requiring Iowa to stop putting up ridiculous barriers in front of the Satanists and let them host their event next month. Their argument, she said, was “likely to prevail” in court.
Specifically, she cited the state’s argument that Krampus “might frighten children” and the sticks in the display “might be used to strike them.”
Excluding Krampus costumes because they might frighten children, while admitting the season’s celebratory displays, targets a perspective on the holiday rather than the holiday itself… Excluding a costume because officials find it frightening rests on the same kind of judgment.
…
The Department did not ask TST to leave the sticks behind, even though it routinely works with applicants to resolve concerns before deciding whether to approve an event... Rather, it denied the entire event, including the caroling, the ornaments, the coloring pages, and the ritual…
… the Department never looked into whether the sticks posed any real danger. Former Director Steen did not know whether the sticks were real or props, though he thought they looked like they “could very well be real.”
…
The Department may impose the same conditions it applies to other indoor events, and participants’ props remain subject to the Capitol’s ordinary security screening. What the Department may not do is exclude the event because Director Campbell understands Krampus to be a figure who harms children and takes them to hell.
It’s about damn time.
This whole controversy revealed how little conservatives care about “religious freedom” when it’s not applied to Christians like them. In this case, Iowa officials used children’s safety as an excuse to censor a non-Christian group and a judge had to step in to say it’s not allowed.
If Iowa’s conservative leaders thought they could get away with banning a peaceful, lawful, minority-faith event from a public building, a judge just set them straight. Indeed, she even cited Steen’s past bigoted comments in her decision. She noted that, during his 2025 campaign, he called the Satanic idea “filth” and “evil” even though he told the court that the Satanists were “very pleasant to work with” when attempting to justify his denial of their proposal. “The Court weighs his testimony with that contrast in mind,” the judge wrote.
The Satanic Temple’s lawyer, Matt Kezhaya, said this in a statement:
“This was always going to be a family-friendly event. We proposed caroling, coloring pages, make-and-take ornaments, religious observance, and a costumed holiday figure. None of this became ‘harmful’ just because state officials disapproved of our chosen expression. And that is abundantly clear what happened. The district court correctly found that state officials “applied the harmful-to-minors rationale to disapprove of TST’s message, not to make a neutral judgment about safety,” Kezhaya said.
“That principle reaches beyond The Satanic Temple, and even beyond religious expression. When Iowa opened the Capitol rotunda for free speech and expression, it undertook an obligation to administer that public forum evenhandedly. Government officials do not get to selectively allow only ‘acceptable’ speech according to their whim as to which ideas are ‘acceptable’ and which are not,” Kezhaya said. “We are pleased to announce that the event will proceed as applied.”
The next step is to get a permanent injunction that lays out how state officials violated the Satanists’ rights and see what the punishment will be. But until then, it’s full steam ahead for this winter’s Satanic event.
(Portions of this article were publisher earlier)
"Protection of children."
"Harmful to minors."
Kids attending Mass every Sunday are subjected to the image of broken bleeding man wearing a crown of thorns on his head nailed to a torture/execution device. Who knows how much trauma is being inflicted on young children.
And given the police records, we can plainly see who the real danger to children is.
Protecting the children is always the fallback position for religious bigots. Christians, acting in the name of Christianity, have inflicted far more harm on children than Satanists ever did. Given their relative body counts in the Old Testament, I never understood how Satan got labeled the bad guy in the first place.