After School Satan Club denied by Northern York school board

On Apr 20, 2022

The Northern York County School District board denied a resident’s request 8-1 to form an After School Satan Club in Northern Elementary School during Tuesday’s meeting.

Hundreds from the community filled the auditorium for the board meeting and erupted into applause when the votes were taken on the issue. Only councilmember Thomas Welch voted in favor of the club.

The evening had more than two hours of citizen comments, with the majority opposed to the adoption of the club. Some of the major points of the evening were focused on the age of the children the club would target, the cultural and biblical issues and the content on the Satanic Temple’s website for the program.

Many of the residents spent the evening rallying the crowd and quoting scripture, saying regardless of any laws that allow freedom of speech, the fact this club has been proposed is morally wrong.

There were some voices in support, saying they understood the concerns but the formation of the club was a constitutional right.

The club was initially proposed after a district mother, Samantha Groome, began looking for a non-religious alternative to the Joy El Christian club that provided students off-campus, faith-based activities during the school day, serving nine of the 16 school districts in the county.

The classes are for third through eighth graders, training them in faith-based practices such as Bible memory work, scripturally based character instruction and learning skills. The students are dismissed during the school and bused off campus for the program.

Groome, who is not religious, said she did not want her children missing out on extracurricular activities like Joy El, but there were no secular alternatives.

More on the After School Satan Club:After School Satan Club to present its case to Northern York School District board

More on Joy El:Bible study group Joy El growing quickly at Eastern York schools, with high school now aboard

She found the After School Satan Club program, and because of a legal foothold in the 2001 Supreme Court Case ruling “Good News Club v. Milford Central School,” all religious clubs are guaranteed to have a “limited public forum” in districts regardless of faith practices.

According to After School Satan Club director June Everett, there are four such clubs running in the country with chapters in Indiana and Ohio.

Satanic Temple co-founder Lucien Greaves said the program is to highlight what he believes are inconsistencies with the separation of church and state in America.

“What you can’t do is you can’t pick and choose between viewpoints, you can’t say that you’re going to only accept certain religious voices, but not others,” Greaves said. “That is religious discrimination.”

With the club denied, Greaves said the Satanic Temple will likely pursue legal action.

“That’s not something we like to do,” Greaves said. “Unfortunately, we have to put up the funds for our own litigation to move forward to make sure that people understand the Constitution understand what religious liberty actually means, where their authority ends and what’s covered under the First Amendment.”

Jack Panyard is a reporter at the York Daily Record, part of the USA TODAY Network. Contact him at [email protected], 717-850-5935 or on Twitter @JackPanyard.