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</div><div><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-satanic-temple-is-using-abortion-rituals-to-claim-religious-liberty-against-the-texas-heartbeat-bill-167755">https://theconversation.com/how-the-satanic-temple-is-using-abortion-rituals-to-claim-religious-liberty-against-the-texas-heartbeat-bill-167755</a></div><div>
</div><div><p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">texas’s controversial anti-abortion law known as the “Heartbeat Bill” went into effect at midnight on Sept. 1, 2021. Less than 24 hours later, the U.S. Supreme Court declared it would not <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2021/09/01/texas-abortion-clinic-follow-new-law/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">block the law</a>.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/Satanic-Temple-texas-abortion-law-16441269.php" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">In response</a>, The Satanic Temple, a nontheistic group that has been recognized by <a href="https://religionnews.com/2019/04/25/the-satanic-temple-is-a-real-religion-says-irs/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">the IRS</a> as a religion, announced that it would fight back by invoking the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA, to demand exemption from abortion restrictions on religious grounds. RFRA laws, which came into effect in 1993, restrict the government’s ability to burden religious practices.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Like the Heartbeat Bill itself, The Satanic Temple’s efforts to circumvent abortion restrictions on religious grounds involve a creative and complicated legal strategy. As a <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/speak-of-the-devil-9780190948498?cc=us&lang=en&" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">scholar</a> who studies the ways in which The Satanic Temple’s provocations affect public debates about religious freedom, I anticipate their latest legal argument will challenge some assumptions about RFRA and the freedoms it was designed to protect.<h2 libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">The Heartbeat Bill</h2><p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In the pivotal 1973 abortion case <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1971/70-18" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Roe v. Wade</a> and <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1991/91-744" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Planned Parenthood v. Casey</a> in 1992, the Supreme Court established that abortion is a <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/section-1/abortion" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Constitutional right</a>. However, states can still pass laws that severely restrict access to abortion. The question is how severely.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Texas’s new law was designed to <a href="https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/meet-the-legal-strategist-behind-the-texas-abortion-ban/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">effectively shut down</a> all abortion while protecting the state from judicial review.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">First, the bill bans abortion after six weeks – the point at which <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2021/09/02/texas-abortion-heartbeat-bill/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Texas lawmakers claim</a> a fetus’s heartbeat can be detected. Most women are <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-absurd-pregnancy-math-behind-the-lsquo-six-week-rsquo-abortion-ban/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">not aware</a> they are pregnant before six weeks, and Texas abortion providers estimate <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2021/09/01/texas-abortion-clinic-follow-new-law/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">85% of abortions</a> in the state are performed after this period.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Second, the law allows anyone to sue those they can accuse of “aiding and abetting” an abortion for US$10,000. Critics of the law claim this is an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/07/24/heres-what-makes-texass-heartbeat-abortion-bill-uniquely-dangerous/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">intimidation tactic designed to threaten the clinics</a> with so much potential liability that legal abortion becomes impossible.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But outsourcing enforcement to the public is also intended to protect the state. Proponents of the bill claim that since no state official is enforcing the law, abortion providers have <a href="https://www.acslaw.org/expertforum/bypassing-the-texas-two-step-to-save-reproductive-right/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">no one to sue</a>.<h2 libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">The Religious Freedom Restoration Act</h2><p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The 1990 Supreme Court case <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1989/88-1213" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Employment Division v. Smith</a> considered arguments that a member of the Native American Church had a religious right to use peyote, a controlled substance.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The court ruled that freedom of religion was no excuse from compliance with a generally applicable law – a law that applies equally to everyone and does not single out specific groups. With <a href="https://www.aclu-or.org/en/cases/smith-v-employment-division" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">this decision</a>, it appeared that the free exercise of religion guaranteed in the First Amendment meant very little.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In response, Congress wrote the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/house-bill/1308#:%7E:text=Religious%20Freedom%20Restoration%20Act%20of%201993%20%2D%20Prohibits%20any%20agency%2C%20department,government%20may%20burden%20a%20person's" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Religious Freedom Restoration Act</a>, which was signed into law in 1993.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Under RFRA, the government cannot burden the free exercise of religion unless: 1) it has a compelling reason for doing so, and 2) the government acts in the least restrictive way possible to achieve its purpose.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Four years later, in <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1996/95-2074" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Boerne v. Flores</a>, the Supreme Court ruled that RFRA applied only to the federal government and not to individual states. So <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/research/civil-and-criminal-justice/state-rfra-statutes.aspx" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">many states</a>, including Texas, passed similar legislation, sometimes called “mini-RFRAs.”<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In 2014, the Supreme Court ruled in <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2013/13-354" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Burwell v. Hobby Lobby</a> that under RFRA, the federal government could not require the Christian company Hobby Lobby to fund insurance that provided their employees with certain forms of birth control. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/07/satanists-troll-the-hobby-lobby-decision/375268/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">This decision</a> inspired The Satanic Temple by linking the question of religious liberty with that of reproductive rights.<h2 libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">The Satanic Temple and RFRa</h2><h2 libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">[nice statue pix kid throne 2 fingers]</h2><h2 libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Satanic Temple’s seven tenets include the belief that one’s body is subject to one’s own will alone.<span class="attribution" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding" border="border" outline="outline" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-image="background-image" initial="initial" background-position="background-position" background-size="background-size" background-repeat="background-repeat" background-attachment="background-attachment" background-origin="background-origin" background-clip="background-clip" /></h2><p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">The Satanic Temple <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-satanic-temple-is-and-why-its-opening-a-debate-about-religion-131283" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">began in 2013</a> and has launched a number of political actions and lawsuits related to the separation of church and state. <a href="https://thesatanictemple.com/pages/find-a-congregation" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Texas is home to four congregations</a> of The Satanic Temple, more than any other state.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Although The Satanic Temple does not believe in or worship a literal Satan, they revere Satan as described in the works of English poet John Milton and the <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781403911827" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Romantic movement</a>, an intellectual movement that originated in late 18th-century Europe, as a powerful symbol of rebellion against authority.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Satanic Temple’s <a href="https://thesatanictemple.com/blogs/the-satanic-temple-tenets/there-are-seven-fundamental-tenets" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">seven tenets</a> include the belief that “one’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.” It interprets state restrictions on abortion access as a burden on this sincerely held religious belief.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In 2015, The Satanic Temple began a series of lawsuits against the state of Missouri, where women seeking abortions must view sonograms and then <a href="https://dss.mo.gov/fsd/a2a/files/Missouri-Informed-Consent-Booklet.pdf" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">review a booklet</a> stating, “The life of each human being begins at conception. Abortion will terminate the life of a separate, unique, living human being.” After this, the women must spend 72 hours considering their decision before finally receiving an abortion.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Satanic Temple argued that this practice was an unconstitutional effort by the state to impose its religious views onto vulnerable women. Furthermore, it claimed that under Missouri’s RFRA law, Satanic women could not be forced to comply with these procedures. Instead of answering whether RFRA protected members of The Satanic Temple from abortion restrictions, the court dismissed these cases on procedural grounds.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">The Missouri Supreme Court ruled that since the plaintiff, a woman known as “Mary Doe,” was <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation-politics/satanic-temples-missouri-abortion-law-challenge-dismissed/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">no longer pregnant</a> by the time her case wound its way through the courts, she no longer needed an abortion and therefore had no legal standing to sue. The Satanic Temple appealed this ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, which <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/112320zor_7l48.pdf" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">declined to hear it</a>.[shock horror]<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">To prevent similar rulings, ministers for The Satanic Temple created an “<a href="https://religiondispatches.org/satanic-temples-satanic-abortion-ritual-may-challenge-states-anti-abortion-laws/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">abortion ritual</a>,” in which a woman affirms her own autonomy, obtains an abortion, and then concludes the ritual.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Since abortion is part of the ritual, The Satanic Temple argues, subjecting a woman to a waiting period is akin to the government interfering with a baptism or communion. In February 2021, The Satanic Temple filed a <a href="https://thesatanictemple.com/pages/texas-lawsuit" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">new lawsuit</a> against Texas, arguing that the state was violating the religious liberty of its new plaintiff, referred to as “Ann Doe.”<h2 libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">The devil is in the details</h2><p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Satanic Temple raises <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-satanic-temple-is-and-why-its-opening-a-debate-about-religion-131283" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">important questions</a> about what counts as a religion. Opponents of the group argue that abortion is a medical procedure, not a protected religious practice. But The Satanic Temple’s lawyer, Matthew Kezhaya, points to a 2009 case, <a href="https://caselaw.findlaw.com/tx-supreme-court/1347663.html" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Barr v. City of Sinton</a>, in which Texas pastor Richard Barr was told the halfway house he operated violated a zoning ordinance.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Texas Supreme Court ruled that excluding Barr’s halfway house from the city violated Texas’s RFRA law. Key to this argument was the court’s statement that, “The fact that a halfway house can be secular does not mean that it cannot be religious.” Likewise, Kezhaya argues, abortion can be both secular and religious, depending on context.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Kezhaya also disagrees that outsourcing the enforcement of abortion to private lawsuits makes the state of Texas immune to judicial review. He compared this situation to “<a href="https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/publications/racially-restrictive-covenants-bloomingdale/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">racially restrictive covenants</a>” of the Jim Crow era in which white residents signed legal agreements never to sell or rent their homes to African Americans.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Supreme Court initially declined to hear cases challenging these covenants because they were considered private contracts. But in 1948, it ruled that a court enforcing these contracts was a state action that violated the 14th Amendment.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Satanic Temple also has an even more creative strategy. The Food and Drug Administration, which controls the distribution of the abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol, is subject to the federal RFRA law. <a href="https://thetexan.news/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Satanic-Temple-FDA-Letter.pdf" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">The Satanic Temple sent a letter</a> to the FDA explaining that its prescription requirements illegally burden their abortion ritual. Currently, these drugs are only available with a doctor’s prescription, and the doctor must adhere to any state restrictions before providing them.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Satanic Temple proposed an accommodation in which Satanic women can obtain a doctor’s note indicating only that these medications are safe for them to use, and then receive medication directly from The Satanic Temple rather than a state-approved provider.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In an interview with me in September 2021, Kezhaya, The Satanic Temple’s lawyer, admitted this was experimental territory. Assuming a court approved this accommodation, it could legally make The Satanic Temple a pharmacy, in addition to a religious entity, because it would be distributing controlled medications.<h2 libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Is RFRA a “loophole?”</h2><p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Satanic Temple’s opponents claim it is abusing RFRA and using it as a “loophole” to circumvent the law. However, Lucien Greaves, a co-founder of The Satanic Temple, counters that RFRA was always intended to protect religious minorities from the government. If anyone is abusing it, he claims, it is companies like Hobby Lobby that invoked it to restrict the choices of their employees.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Critics of RFRA, such as legal scholar Marci Hamilton, warn that religious exemptions can turn the law into “<a href="https://verdict.justia.com/2014/08/07/circle-starts-close" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Swiss cheese</a>.” In other words, there could be so many religious loopholes that laws become meaningless. Whether or not this is a serious concern, it is certainly true that RFRA must not benefit <a href="https://www.salon.com/2014/06/30/here_are_the_highlights_of_justice_ginsburgs_fiery_hobby_lobby_dissent/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">only the Christian majority</a>.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This is why constitutional law professor <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=27312" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Jay Wexler</a> has encouraged the work of groups like The Satanic Temple, stating, “Only by insisting on exercising these rights can Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists and everybody else ensure that the Court’s new religious jurisprudence does not result in a public space occupied exclusively by Christian messages and symbols. At stake is nothing less than our national public life.”</div><div>
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