Speaker 1: So speaking of people using their religion to make laws,
Speaker 1: he may have recalled that. Last year, Roe v. Wade
Speaker 1: was overturned due in large part to the continued action
Speaker 1: of the religious right in America. And since that happened,
Speaker 1: some groups have been working to reverse the reversal, and
Speaker 1: that group includes the Satanic Temple. You may know them
Speaker 1: from their fights to put statues of Baphamit outside of
Speaker 1: government buildings. They are arguing that this decision violates their
Speaker 1: religious freedom. They say that abortion rights are part of
Speaker 1: their fundamental tenets of their religion, specifically that one's body
Speaker 1: is inviolable, subject to ones will alone. So they've filed
Speaker 1: lawsuits and a bunch of states Indiana, Idaho, among others.
Speaker 1: Lucian Greeves, the co founder of the Satanic Temple, is
Speaker 1: basically saying that he has to fight the system from
Speaker 1: within this and that's how the kind of strategy he's taking.
Speaker 1: He says in the article that we have to play
Speaker 1: the long game. You know, Christians, they spent generations doing
Speaker 1: this and so that's the strategist taking. So I'm curious
Speaker 1: what you think, Cindy as to like, well they be successful.
Speaker 1: Do you think that this is the best way to
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't know. As I said just before we started
Speaker 3: the show, Friends is in the process right now of
Speaker 3: giving the right to an abortion and writing it down
Speaker 3: in the Constitution, which is pretty great. But I wanted
Speaker 3: to specifically talk about a part of the article, and
Speaker 3: it talks about a group called Sovereign Citizens. It's a
Speaker 3: loose group of Americans who do not believe they are
Speaker 3: under the jurisdiction of the federal government and I'm not
Speaker 3: subject to US law. And so I studied a little
Speaker 3: bit this group. I went to their website and their
Speaker 3: I hesitated between crazy and interesting group. In late twenty
Speaker 3: twenty one, Grieves received a message from that group. They've
Speaker 3: informed him that he was to be deported from the
Speaker 3: US despite being a US citizen, And after finding a
Speaker 3: zumlink for a Sovereign Citizen Assembly meeting, Griefs crashed the
Speaker 3: meeting and as a consequence, they put one hundred thousand
Speaker 3: dollars bounty on his head. So I went to their
Speaker 3: website and the page detailing the bounty is still here.
Speaker 3: You can go right now and read it. And so
Speaker 3: let me just read you a tiny bit of it.
Speaker 3: So it says on Monday, two hundred and seventy sixth
Speaker 3: day of the year of yeahweh sixy twenty three at
Speaker 3: seven twenty to you city minus six or around, and
Speaker 3: that already tells you a lot about them. Are younger creationists, Christians, etc.
Speaker 3: Douglass Messner attempted a quidita by striving to hijack the
Speaker 3: National Assembly for the Government of the United States of America,
Speaker 3: which they think they are in the capacity as General
Speaker 3: Postmaster of the original General post Office of seventeen seventy five.
Speaker 3: All members were throwing threats with the intent to place
Speaker 3: fear into the American nationals so they would back away
Speaker 3: from their official duties and hand the government over the
Speaker 3: terrorist organization. So, yeah, they're classified as a terrorist group
Speaker 3: by the ABI, but yeah, the bounty is still here.
Speaker 3: So Grieves had to move secretly. And so we were
Speaker 3: talking earlier about beliefs led by religious beliefs. That's what
Speaker 3: we get. Ellen. Did you want to add something.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, So since June, I've had a lot of
Speaker 4: anxiety about the repercussions of Robbie Way being turned over.
Speaker 4: I did work with recovering from religion to get resources
Speaker 4: together for people to get access to portraiture or have
Speaker 4: their anxieties and questions answered, which GAVEE me some thing
Speaker 4: to do about it. The fact that Lucian Greece is
Speaker 4: doing something on the other side where he's actually trying
Speaker 4: to fight the law against the religious right want to
Speaker 4: take people's rights away, and this is just the beginning
Speaker 4: of what a reblical harm.
Speaker 2: This can cause a long run.
Speaker 4: But the fact that he's fighting against and has actually
Speaker 4: given me courage.
Speaker 2: I do appreciate.
Speaker 4: Hoving expressed his frustrations about how the people at the
Speaker 4: Satanic and Temple, including himself, are focused on the right
Speaker 4: things versus the people that their detractors are focusing on
Speaker 4: the wrong thing. They're focusing on the fact that they
Speaker 4: use satan as a symbols, and Lucian Grieves even said
Speaker 4: this gets to be really tedious because I think people
Speaker 4: are terribly invested in the outcome of the Satanics Temple's lawsuits.
Speaker 2: Because they just see the theatrics of it.
Speaker 4: They're not really paying attention of what they're actually trying
Speaker 4: to do because they're trying to tech freedoms for everybody
Speaker 4: through the separation of church and state, and that also
Speaker 4: includes religious freedom.
Speaker 2: And I think.
Speaker 4: Though I love what they're doing, the image, the image
Speaker 4: of the temple is bearing the message of what they're
Speaker 4: going to do. And Greaves mentioned in the article about
Speaker 4: the danger in the stress he has felt as the
Speaker 4: face of the Satanic Temple, he is constantly fighting an
Speaker 4: uphill battle. I'm really excited because I get to meet
Speaker 4: him at free Flow next month, so when I go,
Speaker 4: so I'm actually very excited about it, and I want
Speaker 4: to talk to him a little bit more about that
Speaker 4: in the future. And the Satanic Temple to me, is
Speaker 4: an example of a microcosm a secularist fighting for soe
Speaker 4: rates and free expression in a country that actively pushes
Speaker 4: against those ideas. And since the religious right has infected
Speaker 4: the highest cord in the land, it is even more
Speaker 4: imperative that secular groups fight to restore what the majority
Speaker 4: of Americans want and we and I think that is
Speaker 4: where the focus should be rather I and but I
Speaker 4: really appreciate that they're willing to, you know, kind of
Speaker 4: fight the hard fight, because they are really fighting for
Speaker 4: this separation and using their advocacy and using sedan a
Speaker 4: symbol of rebelling, which I love. But again, as he said, people,
Speaker 4: So Cynthia, what do you think, honey who ail?
Speaker 5: I think that unfortunately the message gets lost in the
Speaker 5: sauce because of the whole symbolism utilizing batha metal batha
Speaker 5: met as their symbol. Right, you have the head of
Speaker 5: a golt in a man's torso with the goat the
Speaker 5: goat portion at the bottom, and then instantly, especially with
Speaker 5: people who happen to be extremely like Christian or theistic
Speaker 5: leaning and also on the right, get triggered by the symbol,
Speaker 5: but completely loses the messaging behind why we're using the
Speaker 5: symbol in the first place. You know, I think that
Speaker 5: I mentioned on a podcast in the past, like do
Speaker 5: you understand that if you are a Christian? And I
Speaker 5: lived as a Christian for almost forty years of my life,
Speaker 5: so I get it that you actually display when you
Speaker 5: display across you are displaying the capital punishment of your
Speaker 5: Lord and savior Jesus Christ. I mean, do you understand
Speaker 5: that and do you really think that that is okay?
Speaker 5: Like would you, like say, for instance, if your mother
Speaker 5: or your father was like gone through capital punishment, would
Speaker 5: you actually use a symbol of that say that you
Speaker 5: love your mother and father. I don't so that and
Speaker 5: of itself is an issue that you know, one has
Speaker 5: to actually go through when they are looking at symbols, iconography,
Speaker 5: things of that nature. But I but one of the
Speaker 5: things that I do applaud is their particular advocacy when
Speaker 5: it comes to what they're doing in order for them
Speaker 5: to try to get back into really talking about separation
Speaker 5: of church state. And you know, and one of the
Speaker 5: things that I wanted to point out and then Jordan
Speaker 5: and I want you to try in after this. You know,
Speaker 5: there's this whole thing that they're specifically trying to do
Speaker 5: is use the system in order for them to actually
Speaker 5: get changed. And usually people are wanting to go and say, hey,
Speaker 5: I we need to work out outside of the system
Speaker 5: in order for us to affect change. And the thing
Speaker 5: about it is, I have a friend that says government
Speaker 5: is the game and politics is how you play it.
Speaker 5: And I remember specifically in an article him saying that
Speaker 5: if I can find it, he said, I get messages
Speaker 5: from people denigrating us for taking legal action to assert
Speaker 5: our rights, saying you can't change the system from within
Speaker 5: the system, And I keep asking them what the fuck
Speaker 5: do you think you just saw happen. That's what we did.
Speaker 5: And I totally agree with this tactic. I think that
Speaker 5: in order for us to be able to change anything
Speaker 5: as far as like you know, far as world will
Speaker 5: be wayed concerns, you're going to lead legislation if you
Speaker 5: talk about.
Speaker 2: Lately.
Speaker 5: I saw that in Congress after the GOP took and
Speaker 5: took charge, that disbanded the Congressional committee that talked about
Speaker 5: civil rights for voting right. And you're seeing this happen
Speaker 5: over and over again. So voting matter, using your voice matters.
Speaker 5: Actually working within the system to change things that you
Speaker 5: don't like matters. And I appreciate the Satanic Temple actually
Speaker 5: doing that. But when he says that, I'm curious to know,
Speaker 5: especially with the wake of the Christian nationalists and and
Speaker 5: them actually getting laws, pushing things that they want to
Speaker 5: get fullard done. Jordan, are you what is your take
Speaker 5: on Well?
Speaker 1: I was kind of torn when I was reading this
Speaker 1: article because on the one hand, I really appreciate the
Speaker 1: effort that they're going for, and obviously I support their goals,
Speaker 1: and it's clever using kind of the tools of the
Speaker 1: enemy against the enemy. Not to other everybody who's religious.
Speaker 1: But obviously this was an effort of the religious right
Speaker 1: over many decades, and they're using the language and tools
Speaker 1: of religion to try to influence the state, and that's
Speaker 1: that's a good thing. On the other hand, I would
Speaker 1: love to live in a world where we didn't have
Speaker 1: to put on the quote of religion in order to
Speaker 1: enact change, you know, Like this is Roby Wade was
Speaker 1: such a popular that it had what sixty seventy percent
Speaker 1: support across the board. It like nothing has that level
Speaker 1: of support, you know, And so the fact that we
Speaker 1: have to play this game almost in order to get
Speaker 1: this extremely popular thing to work is extremely disappointed. But
Speaker 1: I fully agree with what you said, Cynthia that ultimately,
Speaker 1: if we all work together, ultimately the votes are what
Speaker 1: are going to change. The politicians care about They care
Speaker 1: about power and the way they stay empowers by getting
Speaker 1: voted in, and so if we stop them from getting
Speaker 1: voted in, then that's the way we're going to do it.
Speaker 1: So that to toss it over to you, Helen, I'm
Speaker 1: really interested what your take is on this and what
Speaker 1: do you think, like, how do you think they should
Speaker 1: move the home.
Speaker 2: Aila I don't.
Speaker 4: I think that their public persona is a double edged
Speaker 4: sword because it's only gets it's eyeballs on them when.
Speaker 2: They do dramatics displays of.
Speaker 4: Protests against things like against abortion, against queer rights, against
Speaker 4: and they do public rituals, which definitely gets them in
Speaker 4: the news and definitely get a response, which is fantastic
Speaker 4: because you want that, you want that attention to go
Speaker 4: go there. But again, as he said, the messages get
Speaker 4: lost in the theatrics. It's I think it's a very
Speaker 4: hard balance for Satic Temple is doing.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, I'm kind of like, well.
Speaker 4: But he he does a lot of interviews and he
Speaker 4: is the public face for the state Temple, and he
Speaker 4: got invited on Fox News, so you know, his vase
Speaker 4: is out there and he speaks up and maybe out
Speaker 4: of like the millions of viewers watching Fox News, and
Speaker 4: he appears and he's talk He starts talking about the
Speaker 4: separation of church and state and what they're actually doing.
Speaker 4: And then if even five people are like, oh, I understand,
Speaker 4: and they start doing a little bit of research on
Speaker 4: what the Santanic Temple is doing. Okay, I kind of
Speaker 4: want that, So I it's it's really difficult. But at
Speaker 4: this point, with Roby Wade being turnedover, I'm kind of
Speaker 4: not going to be very picky about you know, who's
Speaker 4: going to be, you know, taking up the mantle and
Speaker 4: fighting for equal rights. So and for this barbaric law
Speaker 4: to be forced upon us, and now people that can
Speaker 4: bear children are scrambling and trying to figure out what
Speaker 4: they're going to do. I at this point, I understand
Speaker 4: the frustrations, but also at the same time, I'm not
Speaker 4: caring at this point right now because they're a bigger
Speaker 4: fish to fry.
Speaker 2: That's the kind of way I look at it. What
Speaker 2: do you think, Sinny?
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Yeah. From from the outside, I have a kind of
Speaker 3: a different perspective. I don't want to to emminish his
Speaker 3: work because we haven't insisted enough on this. But the
Speaker 3: article talks in length about the stigma he's facing for
Speaker 3: for his engage engagement he as we said, he had
Speaker 3: the threats, he has to move, he had to move
Speaker 3: his UH this took a heavy toll on him, and
Speaker 3: UH I want this to be set on on on
Speaker 3: on record. On the other hand, I think that the
Speaker 3: the the image that the general public in the US
Speaker 3: has about the the Satanic Temple is a make believe
Speaker 3: religion to attack other religions, and until this image doesn't
Speaker 3: go away, I'm afraid they won't be able to go
Speaker 3: very far unless they have very good lawyers. But that's
Speaker 3: a different topic.
Speaker 5: Different lawyers are just different sentiments of society and of itself,
Speaker 5: because you know, let's just face it, the symbolism that's
Speaker 5: behind the iconography of Satan is very triggering. Especially but
Speaker 5: you know, before we just wrap up and go on
Speaker 5: to our next segment, I just wanted to just say that,
Speaker 5: in my humble opinion, to look at the efforts of
Speaker 5: the Satanic Temple and to see that if they will
Speaker 5: make a change or not, one must consider that as
Speaker 5: much as we try to promote amiable discourse to come
Speaker 5: to proper understanding, that is not the commitment to every person.
Speaker 5: And I think that that's something that was very much
Speaker 5: so displayed when we started to see different laws that
Speaker 5: popped up before and after the overturning of rov Waite,
Speaker 5: and so I believe that sometimes circumvention is absolutely necessary.
Speaker 5: But you know, I think that the Satanic Temple, utilizing
Speaker 5: what they can do within the within the sphere of
Speaker 5: politics is usually the way to go. I wish him
Speaker 5: luck because as a person with uterus, I am very
Speaker 5: I'm very invested in this particular issue.