Speaker 1: Welcome back everybody, It's Friday. You made it to the
Speaker 1: end of the week. Congratulations. And to close us out
Speaker 1: this week, there was an incident at Pride parade in Colorado.
Speaker 1: John has the details about it.
Speaker 2: The Pike's Peak Pride Festival recently was held in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Speaker 2: Participating in the parade and festival was a splinter group
Speaker 2: of the Satanic Temple, the Satanic Colorado. During the parade parade,
Speaker 2: the announcer read the submitted description of the group passing by,
Speaker 2: which was submitted in their application. I would assume that
Speaker 2: the city had vetted the statements submitted, did they? The
Speaker 2: pearl clutching moment happened at the end of the announcement
Speaker 2: about a seven second announcement of Satanic Colorado. The ending
Speaker 2: salute on the submitted form was the common hail Satan.
Speaker 2: Terror on the city council. Let the fear mond entering
Speaker 2: begin and with that. This is a story from the
Speaker 2: friendly atheist Metha on June twenty fifth, twenty twenty five, and.
Speaker 1: Eli awesome, Thanks John, so so you gave us a
Speaker 1: little bit of background in your interest, so I just
Speaker 1: to get a little bit more context for our audience
Speaker 1: about kind of leading up to this moment in the
Speaker 1: in the festival, how did this kind of play out?
Speaker 2: Well, the Pride fessals herald every year in June, which
Speaker 2: is Pride Month. As everybody knows, Satanic Colorado is a secular,
Speaker 2: non religious group that advocates for separation of church and state.
Speaker 2: They've been participating the Pride Festival for many years in
Speaker 2: support of the LGBTQ plus community. The city council chowse
Speaker 2: this time not to issue any kind of proclamation honoring
Speaker 2: Pride Month, despite doing so for the last three years.
Speaker 2: They justify that move by saying that they no longer
Speaker 2: wanted to engage in identity based or political gestures, and
Speaker 2: so they've refused to. You know, most city councils will
Speaker 2: give up acknowledgment to the days or the months assigned
Speaker 2: to a particular group of people, but hey, not this time,
Speaker 2: not this year. It's sort of like refusing to acknowledge
Speaker 2: this systemic bop up words in justice spanning centuries. You know,
Speaker 2: It's like, it can be argued that MLK Day is
Speaker 2: both identity based and political, so you know, put that
Speaker 2: as a reference. But what else will fear keep from
Speaker 2: justice a good question. Calling the Satanic Colorado Hail Satan
Speaker 2: announcement and incident is an exaggeration and a little hyperbole
Speaker 2: by the city council people. Extreme emotional reaction to a
Speaker 2: harmless two word phrase. This is stirred up by the
Speaker 2: usual They did this after the usual Nazi people on
Speaker 2: you TikTok had taken it up and showed the video
Speaker 2: of this happening and everybody laughing and cheering as a
Speaker 2: way of, you know, trying to other people, and of
Speaker 2: course the city coward in the face of a little
Speaker 2: backlash from the internet. Cowards is the right appellation, by
Speaker 2: the way, I don't use it lightly, but yeah, they
Speaker 2: were pretty much yellowbillied, So I like that. Hemmett calls
Speaker 2: out that the libs of TikTok who started this as
Speaker 2: stochastic terrorists because they really are. They really are. What
Speaker 2: they are is they're using their platform to instigate more
Speaker 2: harm to groups of people or individuals. So yeah, they're
Speaker 2: terrorists and they should be labeled as such and called
Speaker 2: out as such. The city council should be singled out
Speaker 2: as collaborators and bigots. So the cowardly caved into a
Speaker 2: small group of wanna be influencers. Perhaps we need one
Speaker 2: of our influencers to call them out the way they
Speaker 2: are and with.
Speaker 1: That strong yeah, strong words, UH for the city council.
Speaker 1: But now you you pointed something out that and that
Speaker 1: they said they didn't want to participate in political gestures
Speaker 1: or identity based or political gestures, which I'll talk more
Speaker 1: about later. But I wondered too, and and I didn't
Speaker 1: think about it until now, but I wondered if they
Speaker 1: put out a statement regarding you know, men's Mental Health
Speaker 1: Awareness Months, which also I've seen posts about us, so
Speaker 1: I believe is taking place in June. I don't know
Speaker 1: that for certain, but I think it's it's it's something
Speaker 1: that people are posting about in June, and I think
Speaker 1: there's maybe some attempt to do that in like to
Speaker 1: to take attention away from Pride Months, which not thrilled
Speaker 1: with if that's the case, but I don't know that,
Speaker 1: So I'd be curious to know if the if the
Speaker 1: City Council made any statements in that regard UH as
Speaker 1: far as not engaging and identity politics. But Damien, like
Speaker 1: Jonathan haven't matter. The author had a pretty strong opinion
Speaker 1: about the social media page that kind of checked their
Speaker 1: all off. Did you disagree with them on that?
Speaker 3: Well, look, I'm going to very politely counter Jonathan's point
Speaker 3: about Libs of TikTok being a stochastic terrorists. I do
Speaker 3: think that some words, that some terms that we use
Speaker 3: nowadays in the modern social media age can be overused
Speaker 3: or lose their original meaning, and so I think sarcastic
Speaker 3: terrorists may be one of them. Now, I personally don't
Speaker 3: agree with everything Libs of TikTok says, and I'm sure
Speaker 3: Jonathan's a bit like that. But however, I don't remember
Speaker 3: any specific incident where Libs of TikTok has incited harm. Sure,
Speaker 3: insight ridicule of certain positions, but I think it becomes
Speaker 3: terrorism when there is calls to harm people, And I
Speaker 3: don't remember Libs of TikTok ever, actually calling for harm
Speaker 3: to be done to specific people, whereas I could point
Speaker 3: out early this year when there was a wave of
Speaker 3: people defacing keing smashing in Tesla's and there was a
Speaker 3: whole social media movement about that. So I'm just findly
Speaker 3: interesting that you know, we call Limbs of TikTok sechastic terrorists,
Speaker 3: even though they haven't to the best of my knowledge anyway,
Speaker 3: And I'm very happy to be corrected on this. Libs
Speaker 3: of TikTok haven't called for anyone to be harmed or
Speaker 3: any violence, whereas we've had a whole wave of people
Speaker 3: keen Tesla's to the point that there are prank videos
Speaker 3: of people setting up cameras and sewerage systems inside Tesla's
Speaker 3: to catch people defacing Tesla's and like that somehow isn't
Speaker 3: or not really thought of a stochastic terrorism. I'm just
Speaker 3: a little bit no, sorry, it is okay, cool, So
Speaker 3: were we agree on that? Now?
Speaker 2: When you cause harm or property damage to somebody, but
Speaker 2: harm can be defined in many, many different ways. I
Speaker 2: kind of use a broad use of it. When you
Speaker 2: are when you are specifically causing a city council to
Speaker 2: withhold support for something they've been supporting, you are damaging
Speaker 2: a subset of the population, and I call that horme.
Speaker 3: Okay, But do we know that Lynette crow Iverson, who
Speaker 3: is the president of this of the of the Colorado
Speaker 3: Springs City Council, do we know that she was specifically
Speaker 3: influenced by by libs of TikTok because Hemmet Metha. Whether
Speaker 3: you like the way he writes or not, he is
Speaker 3: He's right, he writes one after the other, and I'm
Speaker 3: just wondering if we're falling into the fallacy of after
Speaker 3: this therefore, because of this, so Hemma Metha is writing,
Speaker 3: you know, sychastic terrorism of libs of TikTok, and then
Speaker 3: two paragraphs down he's got if the location was that
Speaker 3: the city council was no longer inclusive, President Lynet crow
Speaker 3: Ovison having that point home by lushing out against parade organizers.
Speaker 3: I was wondering, like, there's nothing I've read that indicates
Speaker 3: that President Lynet crow Ovison is on social media to
Speaker 3: see limbs of TikTok, to be influenced by them.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, yeah, I think I think I'm seeing
Speaker 1: this the way him it is, which is a little
Speaker 1: bit different from and of course I'm not in his mind.
Speaker 1: I can't speak for him, but how I view it.
Speaker 1: And as far as stochastic terrorism, because I didn't know
Speaker 1: what that meant I mentioned earlier before the recording, I
Speaker 1: thought it was just him being funny because I think
Speaker 1: that the word terrorist, like I said, earlier. I think
Speaker 1: it's not used enough in hyperbole to its comedic potential,
Speaker 1: but and I do love some good hyperbole when it's appropriate.
Speaker 1: But so here is the idea of stochastic terrorism. Isn't
Speaker 1: necessarily that something that the person who is performing it
Speaker 1: says causes harm or something that they do causes harm.
Speaker 1: But it is too in the context of libs of
Speaker 1: TikTok published content reinforce opinions or generate generates not the
Speaker 1: word I was looking for, cultivate an environment in which
Speaker 1: harm towards a specific group becomes more likely. It doesn't.
Speaker 1: You can't predict when or where the harm will take place.
Speaker 1: And that is the stochastic nature, which is the random,
Speaker 1: probability based nature of stochastic terrorism. But it is that
Speaker 1: because of what libs of TikTok publishes and what they do,
Speaker 1: that increases a likelihood that harm will take place.
Speaker 2: So when they.
Speaker 1: Because at first there wasn't any reaction to this announcement,
Speaker 1: kind of like you mentioned, I think I think it
Speaker 1: was John that one of you mentioned the video that
Speaker 1: at the end they were cheering, people were clapping, you know,
Speaker 1: like the video last twenty six seconds and twenty seconds
Speaker 1: of it is thennouncements, and then for the last four
Speaker 1: of it, it's people cheering and clapping. Nobody is upset.
Speaker 1: But then Libs of TikTok finds the video, they say,
Speaker 1: whatever they say about it, I don't watch their video.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to give them the traffic.
Speaker 3: They basically said that the whole thing, the thing was demonic.
Speaker 3: They literally use the word demonic in there. So I'm
Speaker 3: just bringing up the.
Speaker 2: Things that doesn't cause harm to anybody who's in that parade, now,
Speaker 2: does it?
Speaker 1: Well, it's not that necessarily, it's that because Libs of
Speaker 1: TikTok published it and they have a wide audience, it became,
Speaker 1: you know, it was it was sensationalized, and that's sensational
Speaker 1: That sensation is what put the pressure on the city
Speaker 1: council to then respond with a statement.
Speaker 3: A statistical organization walked in the Pike's Peak Pride parade
Speaker 3: as an announcer yells Hail Satan, and it's met with cheers.
Speaker 3: Demonic that's literally, and then there's a then there's a
Speaker 3: click of the video.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and I think so it does it does
Speaker 1: imply that everybody that is represented in the video is demonic,
Speaker 1: which I think some might probably call that defamation, But
Speaker 1: then what it does is it's that reaction from that
Speaker 1: page's audience that created the pressure on city council, and
Speaker 1: that's why they then responded, because they didn't respond to
Speaker 1: the event until it had all this sensation, all of
Speaker 1: this attention. So that's that's sort of my take on
Speaker 1: That's where I think that the idea of still stochastic
Speaker 1: terrorism and the city council being impacted by by that,
Speaker 1: is that making.
Speaker 2: Sense an event that has been going on with this
Speaker 2: group's participation for many, many years, and every year they
Speaker 2: have something similar as far as an announcement for as
Speaker 2: the parade proceeds, and then this time it was they
Speaker 2: needed to help create the environment of other men and
Speaker 2: the environment of saying these people are not normal, the
Speaker 2: environment of saying they're not part of our society. And
Speaker 2: that's the thing is that when you were in when
Speaker 2: you were inflating and causing people to think of your
Speaker 2: group as those guys over there, those evil people over there,
Speaker 2: you're basically creating an environment where they have to survive
Speaker 2: with a lot of negative people around them. And since
Speaker 2: queer people have had that problem, for the last thousand years.
Speaker 2: It's a big deal when somebody comes out and tries
Speaker 2: to create you're not part of our society message. Okay,
Speaker 2: it hurts, it's painful, just you know, and people who
Speaker 2: aren't queer don't understand that. They don't understand that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you can just laugh it off. Well yeah, but why
Speaker 2: why should we have to laugh it off? It hurts?
Speaker 2: You know? Why do I have to take the heat
Speaker 2: for that when they're the ones doing it. I could
Speaker 2: get into a whole bunch of other stuff with it.
Speaker 2: As a queer individual myself, I get really pissed off
Speaker 2: when people start throwing slurs at us just because of
Speaker 2: who we are and with no real reason to. And
Speaker 2: that's where I stand on it. And these conservative culture
Speaker 2: wars people, they think it's fun that make their money
Speaker 2: by degrading people. That's fine, they have a right to
Speaker 2: do that. There is free speech. I don't think free
Speaker 2: speech encompasses that kind of terroristic activity. And I call
Speaker 2: it terrorism because it is. And you know, however, people
Speaker 2: want to twist that to make it look normal. It's
Speaker 2: not normal and that I'm sorry I'm getting so demonstrative,
Speaker 2: but I really really just resent lives of TikTok for
Speaker 2: being what they are. They may hate me for what
Speaker 2: I am, but I really resent them for what they are,
Speaker 2: what they're causing to happen to me and other queer people,
Speaker 2: especially in this day and age when bigotry is okay.
Speaker 2: I was raised in the sixties and seventies where bigotry
Speaker 2: was not, and I've seen more bigotry in my life
Speaker 2: in the last ten years, fifteen years, and i've seen
Speaker 2: in all the time before that. Wow, So I'm done over.
Speaker 1: No, And I think with good reason, and it's it's
Speaker 1: it is ironic to look at the fur. The majority
Speaker 1: of the message a hold ten seconds of the message
Speaker 1: includes a portion where it describes how the group is
Speaker 1: dedicated to improving life for everybody, making it okay for
Speaker 1: everyone to be their authentic selves happily and comfortably and safely,
Speaker 1: and how they really just want like everyone to have
Speaker 1: a generally decent time. And then they take this video
Speaker 1: and because of two words at the end, they're like, wow,
Speaker 1: this is demonic, Like it's it's demonic for you know,
Speaker 1: to want peace and just like happiness for people. And
Speaker 1: then the City Council coastlines that and says, yeah, peace
Speaker 1: and happiness for everybody, regardless of who they want to be.
Speaker 1: That does not allow with our values. And I can
Speaker 1: absolutely see how that might, you know, come across as
Speaker 1: someone who was experiencing what you were describing, like, I
Speaker 1: can't I mean, I can't relate, but I can empathize
Speaker 1: that that might, you know, seem like just a really
Speaker 1: shitty thing, just to put it bluntly, And that's that's
Speaker 1: one of the reasons I think this, this response from
Speaker 1: city council is so stupid. It's not only that, because
Speaker 1: let's say, if if you had the same announcement for
Speaker 1: a church group and at the end it said Praise God,
Speaker 1: would there have been any like, any response to that whatsoever?
Speaker 1: If it was like, oh, they would assume No, that's
Speaker 1: just what Christians do. Christians just want goodness for everybody
Speaker 1: and they say praise God at the end. There's no
Speaker 1: response from that. But but just because it was different
Speaker 1: sounds at the end, it's this group and I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I don't mean to ramble. I'm gonna let you guys,
Speaker 1: you know, finish it out with your thoughts here in
Speaker 1: the minute. But this group doesn't actually believe that Satan
Speaker 1: really exists and and it it's said that explicitly, and
Speaker 1: it's uh in the description they're non theistic group. Satan
Speaker 1: is their guy is a Christian. Does exactly two belief
Speaker 1: systems in the world that that recognize or believe that
Speaker 1: Satan is a real guy. We're just making fun of him.
Speaker 1: And you'd think that not taking the bad guy seriously
Speaker 1: would resonate with like people who believe in in an
Speaker 1: unshakeable or have unshakeable faith in an omnipotent God, and like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's it's it. They're just playing into
Speaker 1: the same joke every time they get upset about you know,
Speaker 1: Hal Satan or Satan, Satanic temple or whoever it is.
Speaker 1: I and I almost want them to get it, But
Speaker 1: I I because I think uh gen Z Christians would
Speaker 1: probably be pretty funny roasting Satan.
Speaker 2: So that doesn't.
Speaker 1: I feel like some someone would do a pretty good job.
Speaker 1: But we got a couple of minutes here left. Did
Speaker 1: you guys have any any thoughts you wanted to close
Speaker 1: with Damien.
Speaker 3: Look, I'm in no way trying to diminish Jonathan's personal experience.
Speaker 3: Just from my I suppose foreign perspective. I will make
Speaker 3: a couple of quick points. Firstly, is that Christian I
Speaker 3: suppose ultra conservatives have been doing this sort of dumb
Speaker 3: stuff for a very long time. I particularly remember, I
Speaker 3: think it was a late nineties where there was a
Speaker 3: Christian group that tried to have the word Hello renamed
Speaker 3: Heaven oh because Hallo had h E double L in
Speaker 3: the name Ohga. So you know, it's like this, like
Speaker 3: this is nothing new under the sun, you know, for starters,
Speaker 3: And look, it's a I do get where Jonathan's coming
Speaker 3: from with regards to lives at TikTok. And I'm actually
Speaker 3: going through the quote tweets of the original posts and
Speaker 3: there's only a couple that actually mention Colorado, that actually
Speaker 3: tang the Colorado government Twitter account. So I'm not sure
Speaker 3: there's a massive pilon that was caused by this, or
Speaker 3: if there is, it's done done by the means. But
Speaker 3: also I'm just looking at all of the hate that
Speaker 3: Elon Musk and Donald and Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth
Speaker 3: and all these high profile conservatives, right right wing figures get,
Speaker 3: and I without trying to be accused of what about ism,
Speaker 3: it's just interesting that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like we.
Speaker 3: We are. I suppose condemning lived at TikTok for this,
Speaker 3: for this, But then I could also point out, just
Speaker 3: from my foreign perspective, that there's a lot there's also
Speaker 3: the same kind of thing on the other side. And
Speaker 3: so I think it's not so much that bigotry has
Speaker 3: has increased. I think it's just this general lack of
Speaker 3: civil discourse that has that has increased. And I think
Speaker 3: the sooner that we learn to handle disagreements better rather
Speaker 3: than make it personal and oldest kind of thing. You know,
Speaker 3: what this is kind of in line with what the
Speaker 3: Attanic Temple want is, you know, you know, being mature
Speaker 3: humans that you know, I suppose how I'm trying to
Speaker 3: put it, you know, we can live in pace with
Speaker 3: respect and dignity as their authentic selves. And that's kind
Speaker 3: of what I want for everyone. And yeah, that's kind
Speaker 3: of my my final points, Jonathan.
Speaker 2: What do you think I could get into a long
Speaker 2: discussion about about that. And I can disagree with you
Speaker 2: on certain points. I never wanted my diatribe to make
Speaker 2: you feel like you were the target of that in
Speaker 2: any way. I understand you're from another country, and I
Speaker 2: understand that your perspective is valuable. So I actually I
Speaker 2: like the fact that you gave that perspective because I
Speaker 2: would not have thought about it that way. And that's
Speaker 2: that's an important thing. That's why we're here. We're here
Speaker 2: to have a different perspective. May not seem like it
Speaker 2: all the time, but we do argue about these things.
Speaker 2: So you know, uh, the next time I'm in Australia,
Speaker 2: I'll look you up. We can have that discussion.
Speaker 1: That way.
Speaker 2: But no, no, I mean, you know, there is something
Speaker 2: about you know, there is I wouldn't call it what
Speaker 2: about isn't But it's always about uh look shiny, you know,
Speaker 2: trying It gets to be a distraction from the conversation
Speaker 2: you're trying to have, you know, you know, and that's
Speaker 2: why that's why I that's where I would go with that,
Speaker 2: is that we want to get to the facts, you know,
Speaker 2: we want to get to the discussion why this is
Speaker 2: here at all? You know, why why do people hate age?
Speaker 2: You know, why are they so why is this? Why
Speaker 2: are they so putting us down all the time. Why
Speaker 2: can't we just have a parade without everybody clutching their
Speaker 2: pearls and screaming through bullhorns at us. You know, that's
Speaker 2: a whole that's a whole nother show that we can
Speaker 2: have sometimes.
Speaker 3: I do want to point out. So I do want
Speaker 3: to point out that, well, I think there was a
Speaker 3: councilor said that we don't want to sponsor anything that's
Speaker 3: personal or political or you know, into identity. But then
Speaker 3: it was talking about like military like I think parades
Speaker 3: for veterans and all this, all this kind of stuff,
Speaker 3: and it's like, well that that is a that is
Speaker 3: a identity based thing, you know exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's says flip flopping back and forth. It's like
Speaker 1: say anything to cover your ass, but don't worry if
Speaker 1: it even makes sense, or worry about it later or
Speaker 1: whatever will make up something else later. They said, you know,
Speaker 1: we chose not to engage in identity or based or
Speaker 1: political gestures, which is city council Like, I thought that
Speaker 1: was kind of the point their job.
Speaker 2: They're politically. Yeah, here we go.
Speaker 3: I have to say I was shocked, says City council
Speaker 3: member Dave Donaldson. Veterans Day Parade will get nothing this year.
Speaker 3: The Festival of Lives will get nothing, but that celebration
Speaker 3: got sixty thousand was a fifty percent.
Speaker 2: Increase sixty thousand for what front for.
Speaker 3: The Pride Peaks, Pride Parade.
Speaker 1: God, that's aure that is hard. Even a person's comment
Speaker 1: even relates to it though, like one time, right, that.
Speaker 2: Is what about is? Well what about them getting all
Speaker 2: this money?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's what about? Is that we we really
Speaker 3: need to stop. It's like, yeah, that's stuff and that's
Speaker 3: just everything sponsor everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not to push it even further, but I guess
Speaker 1: I don't know if it is what what about it?
Speaker 1: But it is to say that if they're gonna, if
Speaker 1: they're going to choose to avoid identity based gesture or
Speaker 1: political gestures, then they should avoid them and not you know,
Speaker 1: wait until it's like, oh well this is against Christianity
Speaker 1: and now we're going to get involved. Because Christianity is
Speaker 1: very much an identity. I mean, if if, if your
Speaker 1: beliefs are certainly you know, a part of your identity,
Speaker 1: and Christianity is a belief So believing in Satan is
Speaker 1: a feature of like I said earlier, those two belief systems.
Speaker 1: Taking a stance on Satan is an identity based gesture.
Speaker 3: Don't you know that Christianity is persecuted in America.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. I mean it's not it's not like
Speaker 2: they're like, you know, gay or something. You know, they're
Speaker 2: they're persecuted more than that.
Speaker 1: Right, And not only is it an identity based gesture,
Speaker 1: but since they're the government and it's a religious identity,
Speaker 1: it's also an illegal gesture. Well what are you gonna
Speaker 1: do anyway? Don't forget to check below for more nonprofits, Share,
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Speaker 1: don't forget to hail Satan. Take care of