Group wants after-school Satan club at elementary school

Aug 12, 2016

|Associated Press

Group wants after-school Satan club at elementary school — In this Oct. 29, 2015, file photo, a Satanic Temple of Seattle member who gave her name as Dice wears horns as its members gather outside a football game in Bremerton, Wash. (Credit: Meegan M. Reid/Kitsap Sun via AP.)

MOUNT VERNON, WA — The Satanic Temple of Seattle, Washington, has asked a local school district for permission to start an after-school program.

The Skagit Valley Herald reports the group made the request to the Mount Vernon School District in direct response to a “Good News Bible Club” being run by the Child Evangelism Fellowship at Centennial Elementary School.

Satanic Temple of Seattle spokesman Tarkus Claypool says a parent brought the Bible club to their attention because the parent was concerned the club was teaching children to evangelize other children.

Claypool says their curriculum teaches children logic, self-empowerment and reasoning, and they don’t worship a deity.

School District Superintendent Carl Bruner says a 1991 Supreme Court ruling stated that if schools allow any organization to use school property, they must allow access to all organizations, religious and secular.

He said the district will explore how to respond to the application.