New Hampshire town pulls plug on open forum after Satanists hoist flag

Somersworth allowed residents to apply for and erect their flags on a public space. That changed after Satanists got their turn.

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Just outside of City Hall in Somersworth, New Hampshire, there’s a street island called “Citizen’s Place” that has just enough room for a couple of flagpoles and a Ten Commandments monument.

(For a moment, let’s set aside the question of whether or not that Christian monument is legal. It was erected over six decades ago and shouldn’t be there, but it’d be tough to have it removed at this point given the legal environment.)

The flagpole on the left represents the city. But the one on the right has, since 2017, been a public forum where residents of the town could apply to have the flag of their choice go up. The city’s flag policy was pretty broad, open to “any person, group, or organization that promotes benevolence, tolerance, and diversity.” In 2018, a community member even got approval to hoist an atheist flag.

The problem with public forums, of course, is that some of the requests are bound to make people uncomfortable. And that’s what happened last month, when Somersworth resident Sorin Malcontent (what a name!) requested and received approval to put up a flag for The Satanic Temple.

Mayor Matt Gerding approved the request without much pushback.

Melcontent even delivered an informal invocation when the flag went up on Halloween, ending with the words, “That which will not bend must break, and that which can be destroyed by truth should never be spared its demise. It is done. Hail Satan.” (The invocation was attended by State Representative Billie Butler.)

That could have been the end of the story.

But a few days after the flag went up, the city council changed the flagpole policy so that it was no longer a public forum. The new policy puts control of the flags solely in the hands of city officials—taking that opportunity away from outside applicants.

The new rules proposed by Mayor Gerding explicitly mentioned that the revision was meant to “further protect the City from abuse of this policy.” Abuse? What abuse? They didn’t mention the Satanists, but it wasn’t hard to read between the lines.

The policy included a list of flags that the city would erect on that second pole, including ones honoring Arbor Day, Greece, Pride, Juneteenth, and the “Abenaki and Pennacook Indigenous People.” It’s a diverse mix, to be sure, but it still prevents minority groups that are known to stir controversy from participating in the rotation. One city council member even noted that the new rules prevent “strange” or “oddball” groups from making the city put up their symbols. She offered no specific examples.

But the revised policy also creates another problem: If “Citizen’s Place” is now fully controlled by the city, why are they keeping the Ten Commandments monument there?

In fact, during the city council meeting earlier this month, member Paul Goodwin brought up that point, suggesting it was hypocritical of them to remove public access to the second pole while ignoring the “elephant in the room” that “there’s a giant granite monument to Christianity directly next to these flag poles.”

One response was that the Christian monument was part of the town’s “heritage” and not a promotion of religion. But another councilor agreed with the original point that the monument didn’t belong there and perhaps it could be donated to a local church. In any case, that issue was tabled to another day. They quickly approved the new flag policy.

The Satanic Temple said what happened in Somersworth is a sign of how cities claim to love public forums… right up until the moment they’re made slightly uncomfortable:

Somersworth’s decision is lawful yet revealing. It mirrors a broader trend in which governments withdraw from pluralism when its demands become real. In Shurtleff v. Boston, the Supreme Court held that once a city opens a public forum, it must treat religious viewpoints equally. After that ruling, Boston shut down its flag program rather than allow The Satanic Temple’s flag to fly, prompting ongoing litigation. Somersworth followed the same pattern, closing its forum after a single Satanic display. The fleeting presence of The Satanic Temple’s flag exposed how quickly civic commitments to pluralism can erode when tested in practice.

I reached out to Mayor Gerding to ask about the potential legal concerns, if he pushed to adopt this policy specifically in response to the Satanists, and for examples of the old policy being abused, but I have not heard from him as of this writing.

In an interview with Malcontent, however, I did get a little more insight into what happened. He had initially requested the Satanic flag go up all of October, and the mayor told him yes with a one-day exception for a different group that had already been approved. But when the flag was delivered to the town, Malcontent was informed he would be limited to just the one day. That came after the mayor requested more information about The Satanic Temple.

And then, within a week, the policy was changed. (Coincidence? You be the judge.)

I asked Malcontent if his goal was shutting down the public forum, and he told me it wasn’t: “My goal was representation.”

While the city council members in Somersworth said they wanted to make sure their policy was legally sound, the open forum was perfectly legal, too. The fact that they changed it anyway shows how some places love to brag about openness, diversity, and welcoming all voices… right up until someone tests the sincerity of those claims. The Satanic Temple didn’t do anything offensive. They merely exist. But that’s enough, apparently, to expose the weakness of the town’s commitment to pluralism.

That’s precisely why groups like The Satanic Temple matter. Their very presence reveals whether the principles a government claims to uphold are real values or just decorative slogans. It’s ironic that Somersworth can handle a Pride flag and one honoring Indigenous People, but a picture of Baphomet is seen as a step too far.

They didn’t have to change their policy. They just didn’t want to open themselves up to more groups whose flags might make people uncomfortable. And worse, they did all this while leaving a literal stone monument to Christianity untouched. It’s clear which beliefs this community is comfortable with—and which beliefs they want to hide from public view, at least where they have the ability to do so.

If a single black flag with a pentagram is all it takes to make a city abandon its principles, then the problem isn’t Satanists. It’s the city’s leadership.

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