Florida school district may revise ad policy after requests to put up "Satanology" sign
Chaz Stevens saw ads for churches outside Broward County schools, so he asked them to promote his. Now the whole policy may change.
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If a public school district allows churches to buy advertising outside its buildings, should a Satanist be allowed to participate? Legally speaking, the answer seems obvious: Yes, of course, as long as everyone’s following the rules.
But the Broward County Public Schools in Florida have been saying no to a local Satanist, and he’s filed a lawsuit to fix the problem. Even though his lawsuit may not succeed for technical reasons, the pushback may be enough to change the district’s policies.
All of this began last year when activist Chaz Stevens saw a banner outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School advertising a local church. (It wasn’t the only one in the district.)
He sent emails to school officials asking if he could pay the cost to put up a sign advertising his “Church of Satanology,” which is the ministry of “Chaz the Bropostle.” The banner included the line, “Satan is here for the pick sixes.”
Stevens didn’t get an immediate response so he kept emailing district officials until, eventually, local media outlet Parkland Talk inquired about what was going on. The district finally responded… and said the church sign would come down: “Based on the district’s advertising policy, the banner has been removed.” (A similar banner outside the local middle school remained up for longer but that one, too, was later removed.)
Why did the church banner come down? School officials said it was because the district’s policy prohibited any religious or political advertising. It also banned anything “sectarian” in nature.
Problem solved! Stevens merely wanted equal treatment. It was an all or nothing proposal, and the district went with nothing.
The problem was that other schools in the district, including Cooper City High School, still had religious banners hanging up.
So Stevens emailed district officials again asking for his sign to be put up the same way… and got no response. But in time, that sign also came down.
It was actually enough of a problem that Rev. Paul Volan, the pastor of that church, spoke at a school board meeting one week ago (Nov. 13) and demanded to know why his church’s sign was taken down even after they paid $1,200 for a one-year contract with the district. The banner was up from February of 2023 until December, when it was removed “due to a complaint.” (There was no mention of Satanism or Chaz Stevens in his public comments.)
Volan said his church got no response from district administration until July 2024, after a lawyer from the Orlando-based Liberty Counsel sent the district a letter voicing concern.
Superintendent Howard Hepburn requested the church give the district 90 days to update its policy on banners, but Volan told the board he had still not gotten any explanation from the district, Volan said.
“We are simply asking for equal treatment under the law and for churches not to be seen or treated as second-class citizens,” he told the board. “No one should be singled out and targeted because of religious beliefs.”
The irony is that Stevens argued it was religious discrimination not to put up his sign. And then the church argued it was religious discrimination to take down theirs. A total mess entirely of the district’s own creation. All they had to do was… nothing. Instead, by selectively allowing Christian banners to go up, they created legal chaos.
It didn’t end there either. This past August, at Westglades Middle School, Stevens asked officials about a different church sign on the fence. (The district later responded, “The banner at Westglades Middle School has been removed.”)
And then it happened again in September at Coral Springs High School.
It seemed like the district was taking down the banners only after they were challenged. At no point would they put up Stevens’ banner. Instead, they let the Christian ones go up… until they were caught.
In the lawsuit, which Stevens submitted on his own despite not being an attorney, he wrote:
By allowing other religious organizations to display banners, Defendant [The School Board of Broward County]] created a public forum for religious expression. The exclusion of Petitioner’s religious message from this public forum constitutes a substantial burden on Petitioner’s ability to exercise his religion in a manner available to other religious groups.
The case was moved to federal court last month and the district’s lawyers tried to have it dismissed because they insisted, in legalese, that “Satanology” wasn’t a real religion therefore Stevens had no business filing a religious discrimination lawsuit. They also argued that the few examples of religious ads were basically accidents; they were taken down when the problem was brought to their attention and that those examples weren’t proof of a discriminatory policy because the policy as written bans religious ads, so what’s the big deal here?! (Seriously. They wrote: “Because these three instances do not equate to a persistent and widespread practice, the Court cannot conclude the School Board has an unofficial custom or policy contrary to the published policy.”)
It’s possible the lawsuit won’t go anywhere because Stevens didn’t cover all his bases and the district’s lawyers are making arguments on technicalities that the court may have to accept.
But even if the lawsuit doesn’t work, it doesn’t mean Stevens’ efforts are in vain.
That’s because the Broward County School Board now plans to discuss a change to the policy that would prohibit all those church signs from going up in the first place.
According to the Sun-Sentinel (paywalled), all these complaints have forced the district’s to fix the problem it created:
The School Board plans to review possible changes to a policy on school banners that could ban the names of churches, synagogues, mosques and other religious groups from being displayed. A workshop is scheduled for Dec. 10.
…
“It’s like whack-a-mole,” Stevens told the Sun Sentinel. “They don’t seem to have a one-size-fits-all policy. It’s like I have to journey around the school district to figure out who has a sign. It’s quite ridiculous.”
On Sept. 17, the same day Stevens filed his suit, district principals received a memo saying all banners must comply with district policy.
“If you receive a request for a banner or signage with religious or political content, please submit it to Mr. John Sullivan, Chief, Communications and Legislative Officer for approval before proceeding,” said the memo, written by Sullivan.
If they want a template for a new policy, they could always look to the Palm Beach County School District, which explicitly bans religious advertisements:
Examples of inappropriate business partner fence screen recognitions include, but are not limited to: churches; organizations which as its primary function furthers, promotes or seeks to establish a religious tenet or position about religion or spirituality, including agnosticism, atheism, or satanism.
Why did they create that policy in 2017? Because a man named Chaz Stevens, the Sun-Sentinel says, tried to “purchase a Satan-related banner at Boca Raton High.”
Beautiful.
That change wouldn’t mean the religious groups go away, though. Their argument is that if the district allows advertisements at all, they can’t exclude religious or political ones. The simplest move would be to end outside advertisements completely. The downside is that the district would lose whatever revenue those ads bring in.
It’s a shame, though, because Broward County board members could have avoided all this trouble if they just let Stevens put up his banner. Virtually no one would have noticed and the churches wouldn’t have complained. (Okay, they would have, but they wouldn’t have lawyers involved.)
I asked Stevens yesterday if he would consider a policy change a victory. He didn’t think it was—not entirely, anyway—because there was a full year or so when those religious ads were up even though his were prohibited. Furthermore, “I don’t get the acknowledgment that they discriminated against me.”
He wanted to make clear that this was never about money. Even if he won the lawsuit, he would receive roughly $1 in penalties. This is about principle, he told me. The same principles that led him to create alternative “In God We Trust” signs for schools required to put them in classrooms. The same principles that led him to create his company ESADoggy, which helps people who want “animal-assisted therapy.” And the same principles that are now leading him to run for mayor of Deerfield Beach.
Sometimes, the best way to create change isn’t complaining about a problem, but forcing the changes to happen yourself.
To that end, if you’d like to support his efforts, you can do so here.
The real tragedy is that the schools are so underfunded that they need to sell ad space. Fucking capitalism.
This mess is the fault of the elected officials who allowed a church to put up a banner on school property in the first place. Conservative Christians NEVER stop trying to insert their religion into the public schools paid for with everyone's tax dollars. The only freedom of religion they support is their own.