When Iowa Republicans were advancing school choice legislation last year, they got encouragement from an unlikely source — purported Iowa Satanists.
The Iowa Satanic School — which consists of a website and a Twitter account — emerged in January 2021 to heap praise on GOP lawmakers pushing a bill to expand charter schools and allow some students to put state funds toward private schooling.
“This will give Iowa families the choice to seek educational opportunities outside of public schools, using their taxpayer-funded student first scholarship to make Iowa’s FIRST Satanic School a reality,” organizers wrote in a news release.
Lawmakers last year whittled down the school choice proposal and ended up passing the charter school measures, making it easier to create alternative public schools. No word yet on when the Iowa Satanic School will open to students.
It’s more of a political ploy than a real education agenda. The idea of a publicly funded school teaching Satanism is supposed to be a “gotcha” against school choice advocates. But I ask, why not have a satanic school in Iowa?
Satanism has several offshoots and for most of its history was just a boogeyman, not really practiced by anyone. The most active now is the Satanic Temple, which was formed about a decade ago and was recognized with federal tax-exempt status in 2019.
Members don’t worship Satan, nor do they think Satan even exists. It’s a non-theistic set of beliefs that rejects supernaturalism in favor of science.
Some Satanists are genuine believers but for many it also is a political and social experiment meant to test the limits of religious representation in the public sphere. Advocates often identify privileges afforded to Christians and seek similar treatment for themselves, like meeting Nativity scenes in government buildings with their own baby Baphomet displays.
The Satanic Temple of the Quad Cities recently started an after school club at an elementary school in Moline, Ill. Their promotional flier says the club focuses on satanic values such as empathy, critical thinking and personal sovereignty through craft projects and nature activities. Some local parents spoke out against the club, but district officials maintain they can’t bar certain religious groups from renting facilities.
The Satanists don’t just go around recruiting children. Their kids clubs only pop up where their Christian counterpart, the Good News Club, operates. Their stated intent is to “offer a contrasting balance to student’s extracurricular activities.”
What would a satanic education plan look like? The Iowa Satanic School last year published a hypothetical curriculum: Music, to include modern rap; cooking in partnership with a local restaurant; sexual education presented by Planned Parenthood; a 1st Amendment capstone course for seniors; Black Lives Matter programming; and a shop class with 3D printing.
If this is supposed to make a point about the frightening extremities of school choice, it doesn’t do a very good job. The branding might be bad but that seems like a perfectly reasonable course of study, the type of programming families should be able to choose.
If tolerating a school with off-putting iconography is the price we have to pay for school choice, it’s well worth it.
What if Iowa had a school of Satan?
If this is supposed to make a point about the frightening extremities of school choice, it doesn’t do a very good job.
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