OPINION:
President-elect Donald Trump has named as his choice for IRS commissioner Billy Long, a former Republican congressman from Missouri with a legislative record of opposing same-sex marriage; opposing much of the lunacy of the LGBTQ agenda — including opening female bathrooms to men pretending to be women — and of standing against forces that would seek to undercut and destroy Christian values in the country.
With Mr. Trump in the White House, Republicans in the majority in Congress and Long at the helm of the IRS, there seems no time like this looming political horizon to yank the Satanic Temple’s church exemption.
The fact so evil an organization ever received a 501(c)(3) exempt status from the IRS in the first place is an utter mockery of religion; of genuine churches and places of worship; of the overseers of our tax system; and of the entire foundations of American society — to include the pillar of American Exceptionalism, which is the concept of God-given rights and liberties, as well as to the basic moral compass of the culture.
But receive it did and since, Satanic Temple officials have been busily planting its stupid Baphomet statues on public properties, while simultaneously pushing its “After School Satan Club” for kids into as many public outlets as possible, targeting those that provide space for real religious teaching and for real faith-based sponsored events. Got a Christian-backed event at school? Make way for the church of satanists to now come and demand equal access.
The latest is in Ohio.
“The Hellion Academy of Independent Learning (HAIL) program will begin in Marysville’s [in Ohio] Edgewood Elementary School in December as a part of the district’s permitted release time for religious instruction,” The Hill just wrote. “The program is put on by the Satanic Temple, the only Satanic religious organization recognized as a church by the IRS and Federal Court System.”
In 2019, the group received its official rubber stamp of church status from the IRS, based in part on its stated mission to “encourage benevolence and empathy among all people, reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical common sense and justice, and be directed by the human conscience to undertake noble pursuits guided by the individual will,” as TST writes on its website. The group also self-describes as a “non theistic religious organization.”
One of its current campaigns is to be “the leading beacon of light in the battle for abortion access” by using its religious exemption to full advantage.
Among its statements: “With Roe v Wade overturned, a religious exemption will be the only available challenge to many restrictions to access” at the state level. And this: “TST stands alone because we are the only entity that can assert a religious liberty claim that terminating a pregnancy is a central part of a religious ritual that encourages self-empowerment and affirms bodily autonomy.” And this: “[T]he imposition of waiting periods and mandatory counseling is akin to demanding a waiting period and counseling before one can be baptized or receive communion. Clearly, that would be a violation of religious liberty.”
See where the group is going with this?
In October of 2023, the group filed a suit in the Southern District of Indiana court against the attorney general and the Marion County prosecutor alleging its adherents’ religious liberties were being denied by a state code “prohibiting its members from performing its Satanic Abortion Ritual” and denying “mail-order drugs for its members in Indiana to have abortions,” according to a copy of the court order.
Here’s the group’s language: “The Satanic Temple alleges [the state code] violates the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act … [and] the Fifth Amendment by committing a taking of its members’ uteruses; the Fourteenth Amendment by discriminating against its members who become pregnant unintentionally in favor of women who become pregnant by rape or incest; and the Thirteenth Amendment by forcing upon its members the conditions of slavery.”
Slavery?
The Satanic Temple routinely perverts America’s religious freedom rights for devilish purposes.
It’s high time for America to toss this organization and its blatant evil from the public square.
Mr. Long, according to OnTheIssues.org, is a “strong Christian” who “will stand up to defend these values from liberals who wis to do away with the moral center of our nation.”
It really doesn’t get more immoral than Satan.
Christians in America united in prayer to drive out the wickedness of the Joe Biden administration and put a stop to a second round of the same via Vice President Kamala Harris — and God answered in the form of giving another Trump administration, with the promise of controlled borders, the reimplementation of law and order, a cleansing of corrupt deep state and weaponized governments and intel agencies, and a more virtuous culture that reels in the LGBTQ lunacy and recognizes the need to protect children from sexual grooming and medical malpractice.
But there’s an opportunity to do away with another boldly growing evil that’s sparking chapters — mockingly called “congregations” and “temples”— in dozens of states, and targeting children, families and sacred institutions in the process. Long, like a modern day King Josiah, like a modern time Gideon, can destroy the altars erected by demonic and pagan forces and make clear that God, not some symbol of Satan, rules and reigns.
The timing is perfect to right the wrong called Church of The Satanic Temple.
Republicans, Christians, conservatives, believers and all who hold God in high esteem and believe the advancement of godly principles are the bedrock of free societies should support Long — should petition Mr. Long, if he is indeed the next IRS commissioner — to strip the church label and 501(c)(3) exemption from The Satanic Temple.
Evil should always be met with fierce, undying, never-ending resistance.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
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