Podcasts/PoliteConversations-Ep13

Polite Conversations
Ep. 13 - Lucien Greaves Cofounder & spokesperson for The Satanic Temple
July 25, 2016 15:32
After the last couple of episodes being stressful and debate-y, what could be better than a cute, fluffy episode on Satanism? <3 Here is episode *13* with co-founder and spokesperson of the Satanic Temple, my favourite 'religious' figurehead.... @luciengreaves . The Satanic Temple are an 'atheistic *religious organization*', don't believe in any higher power, supernatural stuff ---or satan, and love to use 'freedom of religion' laws to turn the tables on religious folk. Very politically active and politically relevant, compassionate humanists. You can join here: http://thesatanictemple.com/ We chat about the use of RFRA (The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (also known as RFRA), is a 1993 United States federal law that "ensures that interests in religious freedom are protected." We also discuss "satanic panic" from the 80's, 90's and continuing on till today, where there is belief in conspiracies about murderous satanic cults. The effects satanic panic has on people who self identify or even listen to music, dress in a way that could have them identified as "satanists". We talk Satanic colouring books for children, homoerotic rituals over a Westboro Baptists' grave, how facebook is awful....and much more.
https://pod.casts.io/podcasts/polite-conversations/episodes/episode-13-lucien-greaves-cofounder-spokesperson-for-the-satanic-temple

Transcript

[WIP]

Unknown Speaker 0:02 Make sure that that program doesn't contain controversial subjects. And you're not impolite to people. No, definitely not dad. You know me I'm never ever controversial, or Okay. Welcome to Conversations with your lovable never piss anyone off never been banned from Facebook or YouTube never been sabotaged or censored for politely expressing a difference of opinion. Ex Muslim host I know, keeping it non controversial

Unknown Speaker 0:46 This is episode 13. And I'm very happy to have my favorite religious figurehead here with me today Lucian grieves co founder and spokesperson for the Satanic Temple. How are you doing? Good, how are you? I am well. So the Satanic Temple. It's, you know, it's been one of my favorite organizations to follow because, I mean, growing up, I was a fan of Marilyn Manson. So I'd heard of the Church of Satan and read up on it a little bit. And that never really, you know, struck me as too interesting. But you guys are like politically active and doing a lot of stuff.

Unknown Speaker 1:28 Yeah. And some people look at that. And they they ask the question, Are we a political organization? Are we prank Are we a religion? And all these different things that aren't mutually exclusive? So the answer usually is just Yes. All of them. Yeah, it's an interesting exercise if you were to look at what the Satanic Temple is doing, or, or our activities in general and our thought processes and compare them to other religious organizations and ask Is it really so different? Are the Evangelicals today really, somehow more religious sent us or more or more honest about their beliefs in some some cases, just because they they claim a the older religion, but But what what really does modern evangelicalism in the United States have to do with with old school Christianity,

Unknown Speaker 2:25 right? I mean, I can still see quite a few overlaps now.

Unknown Speaker 2:29 Yeah, but there was an interesting book. Kraus was the writer, I actually forget the title right now, unfortunately, but it was about how the New Deal was was framed as a Christian initiative. At the time, there was this drive towards towards charity and other activities like that. It was until the National Association of Manufacturers decided to sell the profit motive to the American public in the way that they successfully have and more recent times, and beginning back then 1940s 50s, there abouts. That really started transmogrifying, initially into this kind of bizarre and Randian type of Christianity we have now

Unknown Speaker 3:14 that's really interesting. What's funny is that you guys do nothing to really antagonize or offend people actively, you're just putting yourselves out there, you know, as having the same religious rights as other religious groups. But yet, you piss off so many people. I mean, we

Unknown Speaker 3:32 put them off in such a way to that they realize I think a lot of times they don't have an appropriate argument against us. So they make shit up. And when, when Catholic organizations call us a hate group or others take it upon themselves to kind of divine our motives beyond what we said and say, we're just simply there to antagonize Christians to insult them and that type of thing. We very strictly only go after asserting our own affirmative values,

Unknown Speaker 4:03 right? You don't like tell them that their values are shit, which, right, right.

Unknown Speaker 4:09 And a lot of people, even those supporting us seem to miss that a lot of times because we'll get messages from people advocating certain actions like when RiFRA the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, was was spreading state by state like wildfire, because people on the religious right were horrified about homosexuals and we're passing RiFRA laws, because they felt that it defended their discriminatory policies, you know, that the baker doesn't want to bake the gay cake. And people were writing to us then and they were saying well, is there some way we could deny Christians business at a satanic business or whatever is kind of a message or whatever. You know, we didn't really see the point in that if you're doing business it's just kind of stupid to turn down anybody

Unknown Speaker 4:57 thought that like probably happily sell stuff to religious crazies, they can give me their money if they want whatever.

Unknown Speaker 5:06 Yeah, exactly. Well, I'll start feeling was when we had started a petition for this in Michigan actually, when they were trying to put forward RiFRA is that if they did want to open up businesses to discriminate on religious grounds, they should actually have to post who they're going to discriminate against on their doorway or somewhere. It shouldn't be up to the consumer to have to go in and deal with that kind of harassment and a situation. But when it came to RiFRA, yeah, you know, we didn't want to, we didn't want to mirror the tactics of the religious right either. That's not something we do. It's not this kind of tit for tat, well, you're acting very inappropriately, so we're going to act inappropriately as well. We we've done something far better with RiFRA. And we're leveraging refer right now in a lawsuit against Missouri on reproductive rights. Missouri has these weasel bills in place that make it very difficult to get an abortion in one of them requires that you pick up informed consent materials that puts forward a religious point of view that the fetus is a distinct human life and you're committing murder and whatever else. And then you have to have these materials for 72 hours. So you have to go into the clinic, wait 72 hours, mull over these materials, and then have the procedure done? Well, we were saying we're saying that the informed consent materials contradict our own religious point of view that they're there. So therefore, they're moved to us and they're in their violation of free exercise anyway. And so therefore, the 72 hour waiting period is moved. But that's how we used to refer and I think that's far better. And far more artists to our affirmative values and been trying to match the discriminatory policies have

Unknown Speaker 6:59 also provided exemptions like from being like, I mean, for I sign so you speak on on a youtube video and you were giving a speech somewhere. And there was a billboard about that,

Unknown Speaker 7:11 actually, that that billboard doesn't exist in reality. We've yeah, that's that was a photoshopped image of a billboard but we have tried to get that billboard put up and it's it's amazing how difficult it is to get billboards up when you're when your the Satanic Temple, or I think recently that was found. Somebody was trying to put up a secular group in Ohio or Kentucky or what? I'm embarrassed I don't remember now because I know the guy who's doing it, but he was putting up a billboard near the theme park that has the Noah's Ark replica.

Unknown Speaker 7:49 Oh, Ken Ham. Yeah, he's

Unknown Speaker 7:52 putting up some some billboard that was kind of in opposition to to the park the theme park and remember something about the genocide park or something? Yeah, it's from what I can see. Well, last I saw he still couldn't get the billboard put up. You even offered kind of a censored version of the Billboard to the billboard company and they wouldn't look that up either. But anyways, that's not the point. The point was that we do have exemptions against corporal punishment in schools. States still allow the school administration to beat kids that is

Unknown Speaker 8:27 shocking to me. Nine states.

Unknown Speaker 8:31 Yeah, so so many others is they there's kind of a carte blanche when it comes to isolation rooms. And so that can happen anywhere. So the exemption form. It states that, that as a Satanist we believe our bodies are inviolable subject our own well long therefore, punitive beatings are a violation of our religious philosophy just

Unknown Speaker 8:55 for that it's worth it to join.

Unknown Speaker 8:59 But we haven't had a plaintiff on that and and you don't want to hope for a plaintiff because that means somebody had to sign the exemption form and then take a beating from the administration in school. But believe me, you know, that happens we will be very fast to take that to court.

Unknown Speaker 9:18 So before we we kind of jumped ahead of this I wanted to ask you firstly what is Satanism?

Unknown Speaker 9:25 Well, Satanism for us, you know, we view it in the metaphorical terms and I don't know if that seems disingenuous to a lot of people this is this is really the component that most people have a real difficult time grasping that we don't believe in a literal Satan. But yet the the, the labeling of Satanism as they often call it, this this self identify Keishon as a Satanist isn't arbitrary to us. That is seems to be the criticism we get from a lot of the atheist and why can't you call it something else? All stream loves

Unknown Speaker 10:00 that you call it that, though that is my favorite thing. I mean, I'm an atheist. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 10:04 anything else? It's like, you know, I kind of thought of it an analogy. If you if you read Milton's Paradise Lost, it would be similar to saying, well, it was a good story. But, you know, having Satan as this kind of anti heroes just going to piss off the Christians, could he not have used other characters? And no, obviously, it wouldn't have meant as much to the reader and it wouldn't have met. His meant is much to Milton. This is what it is in our culture. This is the the symbol of the ultimate rebellion against tyranny. One of the one of the books that we put forward is one of the greater works of literary Satanism is revolt of the angels by Anatole France. And that was the the whole nature of the story was it was put in this context of world history as seen through the lens of this metaphor of the war and having in the church really powers the darkness of the medieval times where we're a product of that Jehovah and rule and the Arts Sciences, that type of thing within Satan's realm, which really, really seems accurate to the assumptions of both self identified Satanists and and the religious right.

Unknown Speaker 11:26 Mm hmm. You get some heat from people for calling yourselves religious atheist? Right. You know, I

Unknown Speaker 11:33 really, I have to say, I, we've done well within within atheist groups. I've spoken at a lot of atheist conferences and that kind of thing. Yeah, but I'm not. I'm, I'm really infuriated by the the wishy washy self identified atheists who really feel like, who really seemed to feel like we're just ruining everything. And I'm really developing less and less a tolerance for the the criticisms of the self identified atheist camp as I am of any group.

Unknown Speaker 12:05 Yeah, I don't understand that. What Why do they want? What do they think they're ruining? I don't get it.

Unknown Speaker 12:12 Well, they think that because here's what I can gather from the comments I see on social media and that type of thing. If we're to be a theistic at all, which we we are, we don't believe in a literal deity. And when we don't embrace supernatural explanations of any type. Then what we're doing is giving atheism a bad name as though atheism should be putting on some type of unified front, which I think is a backward notion to begin with.

Unknown Speaker 12:43 Oh, absolutely. There's such vast differences. Yeah, we can't

Unknown Speaker 12:47 try to we can't try to regulate the minutiae of what atheist beliefs are, ism is non belief. And let's leave it at that. And it's for the better that you do. And I mean, you don't you don't want to you don't want to try? Why try pushing your opposition into further opposition? You know, you get that kind of, that's kind of the the argument that pops up when you're talking about issues related to free speech, or the so called regressive left and that kind of thing when people get so polarized, oh, witch hunt within their own camps, they they actually have a tendency to drive people to the opposing party.

Unknown Speaker 13:30 Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, as an ex Muslim, I get that kind of, well, not similar, but I get a lot of heat from fellow atheists as well, because a there's the camp that is anti immigrant, anti migrant, and I'm of Muslim background. So they often some people often say that, you know, I shouldn't I shouldn't be trusted to reproduce, or I should be sterilized. And obviously, I'm not fond of those comments. And then there's the other camp, which is like, You're too harsh on Islam, you shouldn't criticize it so yeah, there's a lot of that polarization that I say

Unknown Speaker 14:13 that I think it's I think it's really deplorable when we when we throw the minorities within minorities under the bus

Unknown Speaker 14:23 Oh, yeah. And it happens all the time. Like it especially you notice it after a tragedy like Orlando, so much. Everyone's trying to play down the Islam's role and be like No, no, no Islamophobia, no criticism of Islam.

Unknown Speaker 14:41 Well, in this is another case where you have to, you have to see if it's evenly applied. And it's not I understand people sensitivity to American Muslims. And honestly, yeah,

Unknown Speaker 14:54 I understand that too. I mean, I'm a victim of anti Muslim bigotry often so I get it but denial is a whole other extreme.

Unknown Speaker 15:04 Right? Right. But would anybody would anybody be willing to say that you can't give Catholics such a hard time on raping altar boys, that's their culture. That's basically it unless you're going to do that don't Don't be that extreme when it comes to Islam and pretend that Islamic doctrine actually has zero to do with with Islamism. And so, if you can reach that happy medium, it's a great thing but but it's a very nuanced, nuanced dialogue. I mean, of course, the, the rednecks who, who are anti gay the Westboro Baptist Church, those types, of course, there's there's other social factors, there's economic factors, I'm sure underlying their their behaviors and the the adherence to their beliefs and that kind of thing. But the doctrines they're following aren't aren't exempt from, from scrutiny as for their role that is directly stated, is being played in their activities. It's just crazy to me when when you try to when you try to justify a religious point of view by by saying it's completely irrelevant.

Unknown Speaker 16:17 Yep. And it's really frustrating when you come from that background, and you're in the thick of it, and you want to be heard, and you're not given a platform or like, I've been bumped off of radio shows in Canada wants to hear from ex Muslim before that they want to talk to me so

Unknown Speaker 16:35 well, in the in, in other speakers, of course, have been shut down in forums at universities in the like America, Namazi Coe. And it's, it's very interesting, because a lot of times, you will get that kind of rhetoric that you can't understand another cultures situation that you know, somebody, somebody like me, a white man, presumably a position of privilege, or whatever, it just just can't possibly make any commentary about this whatsoever. I have no understanding. But it's different than when an ex Muslim comes along and has commentary that doesn't agree with with the idea that no criticism should be applied. Then apparently, you know, there's a carte blanche to shit all over you. Oh, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 17:25 I've been called a white supremacist so many times. But yeah, that's that's the way it is, then that causes a lot of ex Muslims who don't find allies. On the left, they, some of them will shift, right. And then people will be upset that people are shifting right. And it's never ending.

Unknown Speaker 17:46 Right, right. Well, you need and you should never abandon your your, your values either as some kind of coddling gesture towards any problematic elements. So it's one thing that really bothers me is the way it seems currently. And maybe this is a bit a bit paranoid on my part. But maybe it's always been this way. But it seems like there's a very horrible openness to disregarding the principle of free speech.

Unknown Speaker 18:14 Oh, yeah. Yeah, like with the whole Sharlee of dough, and all of that kind of thing, just the term that hate speech, call it offensive to religious groups. And that's it, it's, it's that and that's where you come in with your religious freedom and be like, Yay, you know, I'm protected. It's awesome.

Unknown Speaker 18:33 I gave a gave a lecture at Missouri University. And and nobody, nobody really pushed back, I was talking about the problem of free speech. But when it was put in the context of the Satanic Temple, the crowd there seemed to understand it, I think it would have been far more contentious if I were talking about ex Muslims or anything like, but I was talking about how these these current polls, there was a pupil that I had cited that said that some, some horrible percentage of millennials felt that, you know, there should be deeper restrictions upon free speech, and so far as it's offensive to minority groups, or whatever else. And also registered Democrats, which I feel as though it's a horrible, horrible trend. In I was illustrating that by talking about the activities that the Satanic Temple has been involved in, in the way that it could be far more difficult for us when people start abusing any new restrictions on free speech. And when we were doing a presentation about the idea of the black mass at, at Harvard, one year, the Catholic groups, the Archdiocese over here was up in arms and they took to the streets, you know, 1000s of Catholics took to the streets chanting and crying and casting spells whatever the hell they do, and they were in a way they never did when they when the revelations in Boston came out that their their organization had been raping their children. Right? But, but they were, they were making the argument that what we were doing was hate speech and that type of thing. You know, and clearly, you know, if you put restrictions in one direction, they will work the other way too. And that's a that's a message the Satanic Temple has been putting out, it's not always going to work in favor of what you want to look at refer refer it was actually putting in place with the most kind of progressive intentions, the Native Americans were doing a peyote sacrament, and they were being restrained from doing so due to narcotics laws. And RiFRA was put in place to say that, you know, they they had a religious right to do what they were doing. This was part of their practice as part of their free exercise. And it was put forward during the Clinton administration had bipartisan support. You know, it's only later on that you find the religious right, looking to reprise their Savior to allow them to discriminate against gays. And you have to keep these things in mind when you're trying to pass new restrictions, policies, or, or, especially abridge free speech in any way, you have to be very careful about that kind of thing. Or pretty soon you're you're not able to engage in good old blasphemy or other types of

Unknown Speaker 21:23 some of us our existence is simply blasphemous, right, like, especially as an ex Muslim, and apostate, it's, my existence is offensive to so many, like so offensive to so many people that they would rather that I didn't even say that I exist. So

Unknown Speaker 21:43 and I find it hard to believe that you could ever walk away from that your topic could be if you were speaking at a university, your topic could be anything at this point in there would be people protesting?

Unknown Speaker 21:54 Yeah, exactly. I mean, I wrote a children's book set in Pakistan. It's an anti homophobia book. And here in Canada, at first, it was really well embraced by schools. And people read it, and they're like, wait, you know, we can address immigrant children and Muslim children with this book, because our sex ed curriculums are recently updated to be more inclusive and more LGBT friendly. So this was, I think, a great thing to use as a resource. But then people heard about it, parents heard about it, and they were livid. They threatened school boards with lawsuits. They said that this was insensitive to Islam, that I was an Islamic and my book has nothing to like, it doesn't even mention religion. It's just a little boy who lives in Pakistan, his uncle and his boyfriend and he just doesn't understand why people hate on his uncle. That's it. So it's a book about love. And so they said this book was offensive to Muslims, some peep someone even said that it would be okay if it was like a white child. And this book was set in America was the same book but because it was boy with a Muslim name and he had a gay uncle in Pakistan. This is what was causing the offense. This is what the Muslim community wrote an article and I think it was on ISNA Islamic Society of North America's page and they said that the school boards were bullying the Muslim community by using this book.

Unknown Speaker 23:22 That makes sense. No, I in my case, I have a deep rooted distaste for for Christianity, because that's the constant construct I grew up in my dad's side of the family was Catholic. My mom's side was Protestant. I really despise them both for different reasons. And really not not a good experience. Overall, I really, really don't like it. But it just the same I realize that other people's situation is completely different. The the the religion is those religions are, are so ubiquitous, that other people growing up had a completely different, different experience of it. And it's simply part of their their culture. It's part of part of honoring their family. These are things I didn't never had any respect for until you your parents were religious, though. They weren't highly religious. I still grew to hate it though. Okay, Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 24:24 same here. My mine weren't very religious, but I still hate it. People always assume you've grown up in some extra fundamentalist household and you were, you know, a victim of religious abuse, and that's why you don't like it. But that's not always the case at all.

Unknown Speaker 24:41 All the kind of religious abuse, I would say that I may have suffered wasn't wasn't familiar, really didn't have much to do with my parents who was really cultural. At the time of the Satanic Panic. There was this prevalent notion that Satan is going around, killing people and trying to insert in

Unknown Speaker 25:01 the 80s and 90s on the talk shows

Unknown Speaker 25:03 Yeah. But I do realize that there's there's people whose experience of their religion is entirely different they they do embrace it for for cultural reasons or whatever else. And probably a lot of those people feel like they're obligated to believe the untenable, irrational supernatural claims that go along with that, I think we'd be much better off if they realize they could be cultural Christians, the Jews seem to have that figured out. But, and I feel like American Muslims are probably better at that, then. Then a lot of American Christians as well, in embracing it for the cultural aspects. I think that adds to some of the confusion where people think that criticism of Islam is is racist. But it shouldn't be completely one way. It shouldn't be. The obligation is only on me to note that some people's experiences are different people, no matter what they, they want to believe of their religion being infallible, or the one true way or a better lifestyle or whatever else should also realize that this is not the experience a lot of people have had, there's a lot of it least potential for oppression and their religious doctrines and some real ways. And that's another thing that that kind of disgusts me about, about some of the people who take this coddling point of view towards some people we put criticism upon, is that they're treating them in a very kind of treating them like children, like we can't teach them anything. We can't expect anything from them. So we need to adjust our behavior accordingly. We can't broach topics that make them uncomfortable, you know, we have to pretend that there's a uniform experience of their religion and that type of thing. Well, yeah,

Unknown Speaker 27:01 and the thing that frustrates me the most is the whole it's been misinterpreted all these years. It's it's not homophobic, it's not sexist. It's just misinterpreted. Like I, I just did an episode with someone who's like a Muslim feminist. And, to me, that's a very frustrating position. Because I grew up in Saudi Arabia, I had state imposed, you know, modesty. There was morality police, I saw them smack my mom's ankles within with a cane for her headscarf slipping off. So then when people tell me that when they try to whitewash, the justification for these things that is in black and white in the Scripture, that really, really upsets me.

Unknown Speaker 27:51 Well, there's also the question to whether or not there's unique features to the doctrine of Islam that makes it problematic and the question of terror right now. And that question is, is certainly enough to really set certain people off. And in I admit, I feel the same way about Islam, that I feel about Scientology or any other minority religion in the United States where, despite how ridiculous it is, it makes me sick sometimes to hear the religious right talking about it as though it's so much worse than their ignorant point of view. However, when when you get to the roots of Islam, ingrained in the doctrine was this idea of of expansionism of war and that type of thing. And I don't think that I don't think that by design, Islam is some way worse than then the Christian Christian faith. It's just incidentally, you know, that these kinds of doctrines play interplay with our politics now. It's just by lucky chance, I guess that at a certain point,

Unknown Speaker 29:06 the level of liberal adherence that it still commands right it's not weekend yet like Christianity.

Unknown Speaker 29:17 Right? Well, at least at least Christianity had render unto unto Caesar what Caesar what Caesar's and give to God what's God's but our our current political, evangelical Christians with their aspirations for dominance in a Christian nation and that type of thing. I really feel like they are not any better than than the Islam is.

Unknown Speaker 29:45 But they're fewer in number so right

Unknown Speaker 29:47 well, and they're working within a different framework, thankfully, in but if you put them in the context of the kind of kind of strife going on in the Middle East, holy shit, you know, I think we could very easily imagine beheadings and, and all the rest. It's just there's just some kind of defect in the fundamentalist mind. It doesn't matter of what culture but you can only hope to restrain them by better systems that are secular systems.

Unknown Speaker 30:17 So I guess Christians are like caged Christian fundamentalists are like, I think it was Michael Sherlock that said to me on Twitter once it's like a cage that never believe the promises of a caged lunatic, right. They're they're only seeming softer because they're, they're caged. So once you let them out of that cage, there'll be Yeah, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 30:43 Yeah, no, exactly. And I feel like that's, that's quite the way it is. So you have a, you have a difficult task. Do you have a I know, I'm not interviewing you, but I'm going to anyway, do you do kind of have a vision for the future of Islam?

Unknown Speaker 31:01 Um, you know, I do support the, the few honest reformists that I come across like Maajid Nawaz. When they accept the plausibility of the horrendous violent interpretations. You know, if, if you deny them flat out, I don't see how you can be a reformer. There are those who are like trying to rewrite the Quran with a feminist interpretation. And they won't accept any fallibility on the Crohn's part. It's perfect as it is, it's perfect for all time, then what are you reforming? What are you changing? I mean,

Unknown Speaker 31:41 are you then then you then it's a matter of playing legalistic games to somehow make it seem like it works within the within the framework of modern times

Unknown Speaker 31:53 people accuse me of being a Jewish agent, like, anyways, I

Unknown Speaker 32:00 even got that from Ann Coulter. And cool. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 32:04 she's so lovely. Isn't she being

Unknown Speaker 32:07 a Jew? And if I'm not, sometimes, sometimes I'm accused of being anti semitic even while I'm accused of being a Jewish Jewish agent.

Unknown Speaker 32:21 I mean, you can get it all the same day for the same thing that you do. You can be anti semitic, anti Muslim, Jewish agent secret Islamist, I get crazy as social justice feminist and an MRA have gotten those in the same day. Right? That yeah, good times.

Unknown Speaker 32:43 You can be you can be everything at once to everybody. Mm

Unknown Speaker 32:47 hmm. Yeah. So going back to the Satanic Panic. So you were interested in Satanism? For a long time, I guess.

Unknown Speaker 32:57 Yeah. But it really started when I was a kid and the talk show hosts will get on talking about what Satanists were doing today. And, you know, just behind the scenes,

Unknown Speaker 33:06 did you identify as a Satanist? Like, as a teenager too? Or? Yeah, it

Unknown Speaker 33:11 was it was presented as this horrific thing, you know, they were supposed to be murdering babies and animals. So no, obviously nobody wanted any part of that. But it did pique my curiosity could be in how there could be such a such a prevalent movement that has been so effective at not getting caught. Obviously, at a certain time, bye bye high school even, you know, it was obvious that so much of this was complete bullshit. But later on, it kind of came back to me when I was getting out of high school or whatever. I really started wondering how, how did this happen? start remembering the really irrational claims I was hearing about Satanism. And it just really struck me as odd because you had a you know, you did have a at least one above ground self identified satanic organization, and yet you had it being presented as though or nothing but criminal and murders. And how could that be? So I started reading more about it and started meeting with people who are self identified Satanists reading the literature and that kind of thing. And this all kind of comes together with my growing distaste for mainstream organized religions as well, getting this kind of idea that everything I was taught was a lie, and that everything was misrepresented and the wrong people were maligned. And I really grew an affinity for the Satanic and never really turned back since.

Unknown Speaker 34:47 Yeah, no, that that's an interesting story that these shows that were meant to terrify. You kind of have the opposite effect, right?

Unknown Speaker 34:57 Yeah, it is funny to see that this guy have artistic raw material of Satanism thrown out into our culture to scare us and to drive home this message that you have to embrace Jesus as the savior of your soul? Or this is the alternative? It's meant as a tool to bludgeon you. If you, if you use it in repurpose it towards construct events and embrace it, well, then you're being told that you have no right to do so that this is somehow their material and you're not interpreting it correctly. self identify as a Satanist is merely is somehow hateful against the mainstream.

Unknown Speaker 35:42 I think it's a really polite and kind way to put the the hypocrisy is in light, you know? Like, it has a trolling element to it, you would? Would you deny that? Or?

Unknown Speaker 35:58 Depends on what you mean. I mean, I think when people call us troll, sometimes they're suggesting that we, we like to get attention for attention sake. And nothing.

Unknown Speaker 36:08 No, I say it in a very positive way. Like I love that you troll religious people continue?

Unknown Speaker 36:15 Yeah, well, I mean, obviously, we love bringing attention to the issues. Myself, I can't stand attention for its own sake. And I think that it's very transparent when people do that. And I think a lot of causes are ruined by people trying to build themselves into central characters in media, media figures and that type of thing. In the most deplorable way people get seem to get struck with a real sickness once they get any media attention, or whatever else. But of course, I'm delighted though, when we bring attention to how we're fighting the reproductive rights.

Unknown Speaker 36:56 You've done such amazing things, even with you had a satanic coloring book that you guys gave out, was it? Did you ever get to give it out in the school or, actually, yes.

Unknown Speaker 37:04 And Colorado, this came by and I bet by next year, they'll shut down the open forum, but they were giving out Bibles in Colorado and working with the Freedom From Religion Foundation, there was table setup and satanic activity book and other other non religious materials were being distributed, maybe some other alternative religions as well. And so it was actually an open forum. But in Florida, they just shut down the open forum entirely. After three years of debates and arguments with secular groups who were telling them it wasn't appropriate to hand out Bibles and Christian literature. The Satanic Temple comes along and suddenly they have an epiphany that this isn't that maybe religious teaching should be left to the house or Oh, it's so beautiful. I

Unknown Speaker 37:55 love it. Yeah, genius. I just love it so much the way you just the way you do that, and there was also like a thing with prayer in public office. And then you guys did satanic incantations?

Unknown Speaker 38:10 Well, we have a couple of lawsuits coming up and Arizona and Phoenix they, they shut down there, they move to a moment of silence policy only long enough to block us from giving an invocation and then reinstated, they're there in vocations. And instead that only, you know, approved chaplains or whatever could could deliver the invocations. So obviously, was discriminatory. The the council members, the council members didn't try to hide this either. We have a whole you know, we have a whole list of comments they made where they were specifically saying that they were doing what they were doing to block the Satanic Temple.

Unknown Speaker 38:48 So you never got to do your invocations ever?

Unknown Speaker 38:52 No, but I think we will. But I think it's all all well and good, because we'll set a legal precedent coming up. And it's, it's, it seems like to me, it'd be a pretty easy case going forward. But another issue I'm trying to raise awareness about is the ongoing problem of the Satanic Panic. A lot of people don't realize that never quite ended this persecution based on this idea of of Satanism. And it's not just some obscure issue that only affects somebody who may or may not need to self identify as a Satanist at all, a lot of the people who were affected in the 80s and 90s had no I had no connection to any any satanic philosophy or any interest in self identifying as Satanist. It was just a witch hunt in which people could be accused of being a certain type of Satanists that this was completely imaginary. And their families destroyed their lives ruined possible prison sentences. But a lot of what happened to there was similar to the alien abduction phenomenon around the same time, people were going to therapy peers who would use regression, hypnotic regression and other memory retrieval tactics, which are proven ineffective and entirely debunked as useful. And they were coming up with these false memory narratives. So satanic abuse and that type of thing, in despite falling out of mainstream favor, this idea of satanic calls ritual abuse and that type of thing, the therapeutic fringe hasn't changed. And a lot of the same practitioners are doing the same thing really. Oh, yeah. And we recently posted a petition against a particular therapist, Neil brick, he's a licensed therapist in Massachusetts. And he runs these conferences. And he has an annual one in Connecticut for an organization called smart, tortured acronym that's supposed stands for stop mind control and ritual abuse today. And we recently had a couple of observers at a conference he put together for an organization called survivorship. He's the president of survivorship. And you can see the report that we've put together if you check our social media, it's there. And there's an article on patios and we had a video that we took of the organizer Neal brick, in stating this paranoid prohibition against people touching their faces at the conference, because he felt that that people touching their faces could signal a type of trigger triggering to people who have been instilled with mind control. So if somebody has been mind controlled by the government, somebody touching their face could trigger that.

Unknown Speaker 41:39 Some real tinfoil crazy stuff.

Unknown Speaker 41:43 Well, it's funny you say that because I went to one of the smart conferences and they were actually selling hats that had a steel match lined inside, I shit you not. And it was supposed to block those kinds of transmissions, I don't mind control transmissions or whatever else. So you really are talking lunatic fringe. But the but the horrifying part is, is that they are licensed, these people are giving, you have people who are licensed in the mental health profession, scary telling people selling these delusional claims to the mentally vulnerable. And that's really what we're fighting against. In the first petition we put out against a a clinical psychologist in California. She's part of this whole network. And as an associate of this Neil brick guy, she was consulting with a woman in New York, a multi millionaire mother, who ended up killing her own eight year old kid, because she felt that was the only way to preserve this kid from being tortured by this unseen satanic cult. time she felt she was preserving him from these tortures. So the mother goes away to prison. But obviously, the big question to us was, what role did this clinical psychologist play because you look at our website, it's full of Satanic Panic, Illuminati bullshit, it talks about witchcraft abuse and these other things. So you had this disturbed woman who went to a disturbed psychologist, and then she ends up killing our eight year old kid to preserve him from some non existent satanic threat. And we feel it's really time to open investigation against this psychologist. As in even if they're going to claim, well, that's client privilege. And those records aren't privy or whatever. I think just based on the beliefs that this woman puts forward, they're so outside the norm they are so they're so debunked, is proven in self evidently delusional, that she shouldn't have her license to practice. And this is a very, this is a very difficult issue to bring attention to, because it's easy when you can put together a press release that says, The Satanic Temple seeking to put activity books in a public school or whatever, that's just, that's known clickbait and there's going to be a lot of stories about that, when it's a story as complicated as this and that we're fighting the ongoing Satanic Panic. And that by the very nature of what we're doing, where we're naming names, and where we're getting into, into territory, where there might be legal issues later on, and a journalist is going to have to put more than than the standard bit of time into to hacking out what they're doing and do some fact checking or whatever. It's it's very difficult to draw attention to the issue, but we're starting to now.

Unknown Speaker 44:31 That's great. I mean, you guys had a documentary on CNN too. So hopefully that brought you guys some attention. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 44:39 That should be airing on Netflix any time now. Vice is putting out a short documentary about us and they're interested in doing a series of little documentaries about a set cover different issues and and thankfully, they want to do one about this issue of the ongoing satanic Panic.

Unknown Speaker 45:00 That's fantastic. I think that's a good cause. I mean, I can personally relate to it a little bit. I mean, no one's ever tried to imprison me or something like that. But I wore a lot of blue. I was like a goth kid, right? Like, at some points pretty extreme in my life and coming from Saudi Arabia, it's not a very common look like, we do all have to wear black cloaks. But this is slightly different. So I had a lot of relatives that would speculate that I'm some kind of witch or not my parents, but other relatives and I'd always hear whispers about how I'm a witch, how I'm a devil worshiper, how I drink blood. So there was some of that in my, in my life.

Unknown Speaker 45:44 Right, exactly. And that's part of being the self identified, Satan is Satan,

Unknown Speaker 45:49 himself, i But yeah, just from wearing a lot of black and dyeing my hair,

Unknown Speaker 45:53 it doesn't matter. It doesn't stop people will call you as Satan is, then people will say that the music you like is satanic or that, or that your, your lack of faith, it also it all, it all merges into into one characteristic of the Satanist. And you can either embrace that or not. But if, if we were to follow the advice of some of these, some of these very lukewarm, so called activists and just call ourselves something else, what else do you concede then? Do you not dress how you want to dress? Do you do not put on that music anywhere? Somebody might be within earshot of it, because you might just offend their sensibilities that it could be satanic, or whatever else.

Unknown Speaker 46:38 And there's a power and reclaiming that, right?

Unknown Speaker 46:41 Yes, there definitely is. And and there's, there's certainly a lot to be ashamed of, if you refuse to do that, if you refuse to stand up for who you are, or completely, or completely model yourself based on what you think the the appropriate terms are for. For something I mean, in this case, to when I when I find the the old religious constructs to be so counterproductive, I have no real interest in preserving this idea that they are the arbiters of proper moral behavior. And I feel like that's what you do, when you can see this idea of Satanism to them. It's not it's not so much that they want uphold that Satanism is evil. They're doing that in direct opposition to to their own point of view. So they're putting forward this notion that they still have, that they have developed Western values that they have always been on the right side of moral issues. In in another 20 years, maybe not even, you'll hear all this talk about how the, if the propaganda works, as it traditionally has, you'll hear all these claims about how it was really, really the churches that brought gay rights into prominence. Oh, I hear that stuff. Yeah, hear that shit about slavery? And is it couldn't be more wrong?

Unknown Speaker 48:03 Oh, yeah. I mean, I heard someone say that it was a religious religion that was all about sexual liberation and women's freedoms. And I mean, these concepts are no way borrowed from religion. It's just such a vague bullshit that you can try to

Unknown Speaker 48:24 revisionism goes way back to the claim the Enlightenment was actually a product of a Christian doctrine that scientific advances and in of course, you know, capitalism now is sold as this is because as Christian ideal in none of that, none, there's no truth to any of that. It's all these bullshit massaged facts that have, you know, it's the square peg being fit into the round hole. It's like that, and that it seems to work. I can't

Unknown Speaker 48:58 Oh, it works on so many people. Because, I mean, I think we live in a theist majority world of people who subscribe to organized religion who are who see the world changing around them, and they're desperate to not let their beliefs unravel at the same time. So they they will cling to anything that will help them believe that this still works.

Unknown Speaker 49:21 Well, on a on a smaller scale. You see that with with Donald Trump being given the nomination, and some people are surprised that the religious right seems to be lining up and saying well, yeah, this is this is our guy, this was always our guy, but that's what they'll do. Of course, just just in the same way they'll claim that the current values in a lot of ways are their own and they authored them when when there's no turning back,

Unknown Speaker 49:45 right and not religious or you know, isn't he like a serial adulterer and

Unknown Speaker 49:51 yeah, but once once you have that monopoly, you're not going to give it up. I don't I don't see the religious right saying, well, we lost the Republican parties sorry. They're going to try to cut their losses and say like, No, this was part of our plan all along.

Unknown Speaker 50:07 Such a good analogy. That's exactly how religious people work on a larger scale. So how many, like how many members? Do you have to know that number offhand?

Unknown Speaker 50:17 Around 40,000? I think that's awesome. That must be mentioned, we let people just sign up online. But why wouldn't we? I think that there's a certain you, why would we put a high burden of proof upon the people who self identify with us that would be putting us also at a disadvantage to the more traditional religions where you are a few say you are, and then those those numbers are reflected in pupils and everything else? You know, we don't go out and try to recruit. We're not. We're not too terribly concerned with numbers. We know it means something when it comes to political movements, overall, and in general. But But yeah, no, I think I think that's that's the best way to do it. You know, people can sign up and then they can identify with us. They don't need to, they don't necessarily need to buy a membership card or a certificate or whatever. You

Unknown Speaker 51:22 can just like sign up for free. Yeah, yeah. You don't need to

Unknown Speaker 51:27 be sold a membership card. But you shouldn't have to pay to be a member.

Unknown Speaker 51:33 Great. I think that's great. Yeah. And you can just go to the Satanic Temple comm and sign up. Yeah. Yeah. Great. So if anyone listening wants to sign up, go do it.

Unknown Speaker 51:45 And feel free also to sign our sign our petition against against this mental health care malpractice?

Unknown Speaker 51:53 Yeah, for sure. You guys do a lot of really good work. You focus a lot on Christians, right? How can you expand it to troll other religions? I don't want to use the word troll, but you may be better for me,

Unknown Speaker 52:09 you know, our activism. In we get some of that bullshit to where people are complaining, well, we won't see you say anything against against the Muslims or whatever, and then getting all hot, or whatever. But I mean, the fact of the matter is, if if Muslims were pushing Islamic doctrine in public schools, and where we're where they're relevant, it would be the same reply, we would still offer a counter voice. So, you know, we're, we're putting opposition to the religious, the Christian religious right here all the time. Because that's, that's that there is definitely yeah, that's simply what's going on in the United States. Yeah. Obviously, you know, there's,

Unknown Speaker 52:56 have you had any requests to have like, chapters outside the US?

Unknown Speaker 53:01 Yeah. And actually, some of these people, I've just worked to talk out of it. Because I felt like this. The situation was such where they would really be putting themselves in legitimate danger.

Unknown Speaker 53:12 Like in the Middle East or something? Well,

Unknown Speaker 53:16 like in Peru, yeah. Yeah. And there was a guy recently who is wearing a Satanic Temple t shirt on Turkish TV, which I thought was, wow, yeah, not a not not something to be taken lightly, by any means either. We have a chapter in Italy, we have one, of course, starting in the UK. And that one seems like that one that actually seems like it'll have a lot of action. And we do have a lot of international requests and thing, but we want to talk with with everybody in other countries and make sure that they have the support they'll need and that their situation is such that it's it's a good idea.

Unknown Speaker 54:01 Well, I hope and pray to see the Saudi and Pakistani chaffed for Sunday.

Unknown Speaker 54:07 I mean, it's not. It's not as though we don't get death threats here.

Unknown Speaker 54:10 No, yeah. Yeah, but the state is not on the side of those death threats. Right, right. Exactly. Any bit better, I guess. But But yeah, no, I can imagine. Do you ever feel like unsafe because your face is out there? Like I stay anonymous because of the amount of death and rape threats that I get. So I mean, you're obviously much braver than I am. But do you feel unsafe?

Unknown Speaker 54:38 You know, I did it first. And when I did some early speaking arrangements where I would go into the Bible Belt territory to speak and realize that it was open to the public, and that thread sitcom, I would feel like, it was just crazy what I was doing, you know, my mood can shift day to day.

Unknown Speaker 54:58 How's your family with like, Are they cool with the Satanic Temple?

Unknown Speaker 55:04 Oh, yeah, they're fine. That's good. Because they've had to reconcile themselves to it. They've done a pretty, pretty good job. Nobody's nobody's really giving me a hard time there. But nobody's nobody's assaulted me. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 55:19 That's good. Yeah. Excellent. And let's hope that it never happens. Well, one

Unknown Speaker 55:26 thing is, so one thing that really pisses me off is is Facebook. I get death threats on Facebook, people post threats against the Satanic Temple, calling for us to be beaten, murdered, our monument to be destroyed, shot smashed, bombed whatever else. And there hasn't been a single time. I've reported that kind of behavior on Facebook that they haven't found that it didn't violate their

Unknown Speaker 55:53 own. Yeah, I'm so glad you brought this up. Because you know, they've kicked me off of Facebook twice for offending people. Or being an ex Muslim. You get I mean, I've been banned from YouTube for this very podcast, where I haven't really had any more controversial conversations in this one. But it was banned from YouTube twice. And Facebook twice. Also Also, because they have this real name policy, which maybe you also have suffered under. I don't know what name you go by on Facebook, but they insist that you use your real name, which I don't for obvious reasons, I don't want to die. Then they take away your Facebook account, and they demand you show them government ID,

Unknown Speaker 56:38 right? Well, I have a fan page. So you're allowed to use whatever

Unknown Speaker 56:43 I had a fan page to because I did that later. And someone's still got it taken down. Because that's the only thing they can report me for is the pseudonym

Unknown Speaker 56:52 is weird, because my understanding of the fanpage was that you were allowed to use your pseudonym on the fan page. But if you need to get it out of your system, if you need to really rage on Facebook, just know you can send the Satanic Temple any death threat you want. And Facebook does not give a shit.

Unknown Speaker 57:08 Yeah. Or or ex Muslims. Like you can send them rape threats. And you can be ISIS recruiting people, and they thrive on Facebook, but people like us will suffer on Facebook either will get taken down or people who threaten us won't get pinned down.

Unknown Speaker 57:27 Yeah, I really hope to see the day that Facebook is overtaken by some some better, more secure for it as far as personal information goes. Social media platform

Unknown Speaker 57:42 actively hostile towards privacy. They want your information. I hate

Unknown Speaker 57:50 where they they've they've they've gone through great efforts to make it difficult to use Facebook on your mobile phone without

Unknown Speaker 57:59 messenger app. Yeah, right.

Unknown Speaker 58:02 Which course is just phone access for them.

Unknown Speaker 58:05 Yeah, I never downloaded it did you?

Unknown Speaker 58:08 Know good. But I don't really read my messages on Facebook either. So it doesn't really

Unknown Speaker 58:16 well. I'm glad I got to you on Twitter.

Unknown Speaker 58:18 Yes.

Unknown Speaker 58:19 Thank you. No, thank you. It's been such a pleasure chatting with you. I don't often say that to religious people. But

Unknown Speaker 58:28 Well, anytime. You know, we're a young organization and it's grown really fast. And we're doing everything we can to put in we generally have no budget either. And that's that's another thing. You know, we crowdfund a lot of time for individual projects, we have our reproductive rights fund. And all of it and more goes towards its its intended projects, believe me. But now we've put together a very dedicated Council, and we're starting to look at doing things on more of a nationwide scale. So we have some projects coming up, that that will, I think really kind of help redefine the religious liberty dialog in the United States. One side has grown, grown sick with the monopoly they've had in you still have this prevalent notion, despite the things we've done, that religious liberty only benefits one side of the argument. And I think we have some things coming up now that are of a sufficient scale, that it will cause people to think differently of is this hereafter.

Unknown Speaker 59:43 I cannot wait. I mean, you guys did this pink mass with Fred Phelps, mother.

Unknown Speaker 59:50 Yeah. What's funny is the aftermath of that. That was a very kind of theatrical thing in in really the my first intro adduction into into the press, you know, people started recognizing me by the pictures from the pink mass and that kind of thing.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:08 Just great headpiece on with the horns as

Unknown Speaker 1:00:11 well. Of course, the most controversial part of that is that at the culmination of this, this little ritual event in a cemetery and what this was for anybody who doesn't know is that the Westboro Baptist Church was going to protest the funerals of the Boston Marathon bombing victims. And me in person i co founded the Satanic Temple with we're in Boston at the time, and we were going to join the counter protesters to see the Westboro Baptist Church come at this time and you know, at a real horrible time to come to Boston and kind of flaunt your your anti homosexual agenda and in just plain ignorance at the funerals of these victims. So we go there, and there's a massive turnout. And I think the Westboro Baptist Church had to know that there was a real potential for things to get get ugly in this situation, and then they, they didn't show up, they they opted out of that one. Probably best for them. But they tweeted these images where they superimpose themselves over the crowd holding their signs that, you know, God brought aids or whatever God brought the bombs and all that. And then they said, we were with you in spirit, you know, this kind of mocking tweet or whatever. So we are considering and ways in which we could maybe meet the Westboro Baptist Church on similar spiritual terms. So we in Fred Phelps was alive at the time. Thankfully, he's dead now. But we looked up and found that his mother's grave was in this obscure, large cemetery in Mississippi. So we went over there to do these homoerotic satanic rituals over her grave.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:05 Oh, I mean, I feel so bad laughing about things being done over someone's grave, but this is,

Unknown Speaker 1:02:13 yeah, this is the Westboro Baptists. Yeah, I

Unknown Speaker 1:02:15 know. Right. So I feel so conflicted. But But no, it's hilarious. I got some

Unknown Speaker 1:02:22 of that criticism, people were saying, What if somebody did that over your mother's grave? And it's, it's similar to asking, Well, what if somebody? What if somebody imposed a punishment of capital punishment on you? Why would somebody do that? It's like, you know, you can't just look at Ted Bundy getting the electric chair and saying, Well, what if my mother got the electric chair? My mother wasn't a serial killer. There's a certain difference there. But in any case, we did these these homoerotic rituals over over the grave of his mother. And then at the end, I

Unknown Speaker 1:02:58 don't have people making out right over Yeah, that's so brilliant.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:03 Yeah, it seemed very tame to me. And I respectfully placed my testicles on our grave at the kind of culmination of the, of the event. And that, of course, caused the most controversy. Because images of that are were released as well. Oh, my gosh, and we declared her a lesbian in the afterlife, but I also made clear to the media that we didn't believe in that supernatural shit anyways, so that the real message was that we believe that due to the Westboro Baptist Church, his beliefs that they were obligated to believe that she was in an afterlife, in the Westboro Baptist Church. Yeah, the Westboro Baptist churches made this argument that belief is inviolable, and they can believe what they want. And so we extended that to our belief being inviolable about what we believe about what they believe. And we felt that they believed that she was a lesbian, the afterlife despite anything else, they might say. Their belief was inviolable. So that that was the whole message there and people's sense of asked if I regret doing that, because now they see these more highbrow campaigns, you know, these real these real well defined legal arguments and that type of thing. But no, not at all. I think that was great. I think as far as ritual goes, the pink mass was everything a ritual should be an actually had some kind of effect in the real world. And naturally, the Westboro Baptist Church had very public fits about what had happened and, and they graced us with one of their famous flyers saying that Satanist, homosexuals, and whoever else, we're all wanting the same. We're all gonna burn an owl and all that.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:43 Well, you made it onto one of their flyers. I hope you frame that. Yeah, it's great. I know what you guys do is amazing. And I can't believe that you get heat from so many different kinds of groups of people, including atheists who think you're ruining everything. Fuck them all. Keep doing what you're doing. You know, I get like this weird like envy right of, of people who are like even you guys have a lot of like the mainstream media like John Oliver Samantha Bee, Jon Stewart, they'll all make fun of conservative Christianity, like, right on TV. Right? And I'm just like, when are we going to get that for us? Like, cheer for you? Absolutely. But I'm also like, I want it to.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:30 Right, exactly. It's important, it's something you need, you need that kind of criticism, you need that kind of counterbalance. And, you know, I as I said, the, it was really with the Danish cartoons that I really got got disgusted with some of the reaction I I never forgave the magazine the nation for its reply to the Danish cartoon controversy, when they were kind of trying so hard to, to not to not throw away their values and and their, their adherence to free speech principles, but it was just impossible to the point where they were just writing these sense nonsensical statements. Yeah, sizing the public criticizing the publication that put out the the Mohammed cartoons by saying, you know, you would never find that same publication, printing any similar cartoon disparaging or mocking Jesus. And I thought, well, that's not the point, then they shouldn't be obligated to do that either their their publication of a certain market. I mean, it might be a deplorable publication might disagree with everything it says, you know, it might be infuriating when you see it,

Unknown Speaker 1:06:43 but they do it to the publications that are equal offenders of all religions, like like Charlie Hebdo, they call them racist.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:51 Point, buddy, but even if they didn't, you know, we shouldn't we shouldn't concede that we shouldn't say, Well, you can't. You can't publish this kind of thing. And it's just, it's just, it's insane.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:04 Yeah, I mean, I interviewed a Canadian Journal, journalist from one of the biggest papers here. And he had written on the death anniversary of Charlie Hebdo. This article that was really quite offensive to me as an illustrator and an ex Muslim, called, like, saying they were like snickering clowns racist, like on their death anniversary. This is what he has to say. And I'm like, after they've been pumped with bullets, man, this is this is really awful. And he's, you know, a liberal guy. So I don't know what this weird reflexes. So I had a chat with him, and I can send you the link to that conversation. But he had clearly never thought about someone in my position before. And you can see

Unknown Speaker 1:07:54 like to ignore that there's people in your position or I don't think a lot of people shouting down. Maryam Namazi, or Ayaan Hirsi Ali have have a very, very significant grasp of what they're saying or doing or what their backgrounds are either. In that's that's a real sad thing to me.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:15 It's been such a pleasure talking to you. And then the pleasure talking to you as well. Good luck to you guys.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:22 What's your, what's your ex Muslim comrades know that if it's something that they're interested in identifying, and they certainly have a place in the Satanic Temple.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:32 Thank you. Thank you for being so welcoming towards all. You can follow Lucian

Unknown Speaker 1:08:37 at evolution Greaves.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:40 That's Luc INGREAV. Yes,

Unknown Speaker 1:08:47 correct. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:48 All right. Take care. Thank you. Bye bye. Thanks for listening to another episode of polite conversations. You can support this podcast by sharing the shit out of it, making some noise about it, or contributing via Patreon patreon.com forward slash nice mangoes. No Ian mangoes. Also, you can follow me on Twitter at nice mangos. If you want to make a one time donation instead of a monthly patreon one, you can do so via PayPal. Nice mangos.blog@gmail.com. Remember, no Ian mangoes. If you've got an interesting story and would potentially like to be a guest, you can email me there to a special thanks to Dylan Beck for theme music, sound and production help