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gewg_ writes:

The Center for American Progress reports:

The Supreme Court's recent Hobby Lobby decision, which allowed some for-profit companies to claim a religious exemption to Obamacare's contraception mandate, has sparked a heated debate over the definition of religious liberty and its role in modern society. At this point, even a Satantic cult has decided to weigh in.

The Satanic Temple - a faith community that describes itself as facilitating "the communication and mobilization of politically aware Satanists, secularists, and advocates for individual liberty" - has launched a new campaign seeking a religious exemption to certain anti-abortion laws that attempt to dissuade women from ending a pregnancy. The group says they have deeply held beliefs about bodily autonomy and scientific accuracy, and those beliefs are violated by state-level "informed consent" laws that rely on misleading information about abortion risks.

Now that the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby, the Satanists point out, it strengthens their own quest to opt out of laws related to women's health care that go against their religious liberty. "Because of the respect the Court has given to religious beliefs, and the fact that our our beliefs are based on best available knowledge, we expect that our belief in the illegitimacy of state mandated 'informational' material is enough to exempt us, and those who hold our beliefs, from having to receive them," a spokesperson for the organization said in a statement.

The Satanic Temple, sometimes referred to as "the nicest Satanic cult in the world," falls somewhere between satire, performance art, and activism. The group says its central mission is to "encourage benevolence and empathy among all people, reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical common sense and justice, and be directed by the human conscience to undertake noble pursuits guided by the individual will." It has a set of seven tenets that closely track with humanism. Typically, wherever issues of church and state are overlapping, the Satanic Temple isn't far behind.

[...]

the Satanic Temple is turning its attention to "campaigns to assert our religious protection for women with health needs that are being complicated by unreasonable laws," focusing on the abortion-related legislation that goes against science.