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The Satanic Temple has announced that the IRS has deemed it a tax-exempt organization, meaning in the eyes of the government the Satanic Temple is an official religion.

The group was founded in 2012. It was conceptualized as a result of President George W. Bush’s initiative to fund all religious groups. Its founders, Malcolm Jarry and Lucien Greaves, wanted to create a group that would meet all the criteria for funding and simultaneously repulse Bush and his supporters. The group is aptly headquartered in Salem, Massachusetts, the site of the infamous 1692-3 witchcraft trials that left twenty people (and a poor dog) dead.

The Satanic Temple does not believe in the supernatural Satan, but instead they believe in the literary Satan. The use this allegorical Satan as a metonymy for several values: skeptical freethought, inalienable personal rights, and curiosity. The group made a name for themselves when they protested a monument of the Ten Commandments at the Oklahoma state capitol. They didn’t march or sign petitions. Instead, they built a one-ton statue of Baphomet, a “deity” likely invented to persecute the powerful Knights Templar in the 14th century.

The group made news earlier this year when they sued Netflix for the statue of Baphomet that appeared in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.

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