The Devil is in the Details of the Satan Club
An after-school "Satan club" that meets at a public school is and must continue to be legal under the Constitution.
Lebanon was the first Connecticut town to be given a Biblical name. Now, more than 300 years later, local Satanists want to take it to hell. There could be something to that, considering the town of approximately seven-thousand people on the northern border of New London County sits just below the junction of CT-66 and U.S. 6 in Columbia.
In a story that made local and national news on Friday, an after-school “Satan Club” is set to meet after-school at Lebanon Elementary School starting next month. It is of course facing some predictable opposition by parents, including the incorrect argument that God has been kicked out of schools, yet the Satan Club is ok.
Like a lot of Constitutional and First Amendment issues, the devil is in the details. Most importantly, the club is not established by the school or town at all. It is organized by members of the community. Additionally, it will be after-school and voluntary. Students will not (and cannot) be compelled to receive religious instruction during the school day. Lastly, and importantly, religious groups are allowed to meet on municipal property, including public schools, if the municipality permits community groups to do such. The Supreme Court held as such in Good News Club v. Milford Central School District in 2001. The petitioner in that case, the Good News Club, is an Evangelical Christian organization that hosts after-school events for children. It happens to currently have a chapter in Lebanon.
Previously, in Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School Dist. in 1993, the Supreme Court held that a religious group could use a public school to show a religious film after-school.
Whether the Church of Satan or organizers of the Satan Club actually worship the Devil or are just criticizing actual religion, the First Amendment commands that they be given the same opportunity to use public facilities as religious groups. As I wrote previously, freedom of religion requires freedom from religion.
I do not recall any of my schools having a Satan Club. I think that there was a Bible club, although I did not attend. My elementary school (it was then called NIS, Northford Intermediate School, a vestige to when it was a middle school) was however used by the local Catholic Church for after-school Catechism classes on Mondays. (Connecticut has no law prohibiting such use in public schools although there might still be controlling law from 1858 on the subject). I was not compelled by the school to go but by my parents, which was within their rights. Despite having it most Mondays, I occasionally ‘forgot’ and took the bus home. Would I have checked out a Satan Club if we had it? Maybe. As long as it didn’t interfere with Saved By the Bell.