Any ethnic minority who is not on board with hardcore leftist DEI authoritarianism is part of the white supremacist movement. It's "multiracial whiteness."
BELTRAN: So there's been a whole lot of people thinking and theorizing about white supremacy. And all of these scholars share a view that I share, that whiteness is not the same thing as white people and that whiteness is actually better understood as a political project that has emerged historically, and that is dynamic and that is always changing. And so whiteness as an ideology is rooted in America's history of white supremacy -- right? -- which has to do with the legacy of slavery or Indigenous dispossession or Jim Crow. And I think it's important to realize just how long in this country legal discrimination was not simply culturally acceptable but legally authorized. And so we've only been practicing a more consistent form of legal equality for a relatively short time since the 1960s. So Americans have often learned how to create their own sense of belonging through violence and through the exclusion of certain groups and populations.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: So what you're saying, essentially, is that people of other races and ethnicities want to benefit from white privilege by supporting it.
BELTRAN: Right.
Remember, we're the racist, they're the "anti-racists" teaching us how to be non-racist like they are.
By the way, you paid for that racist agitprop. It's state media outlet NPR.
Florida pedophile may be the first to face the death penalty.
An accused pedophile could become the first person in Florida put to death for sexually abusing a child.
Prosecutors announced Thursday their intent to seek a capital punishment sentence under a new law for Joseph Andrew Giampa, who was allegedly filmed molesting a young boy.
In a statement announcing Giampa's grand jury indictment, the Fifth Judicial Circuit State Attorney's Office noted the "severity of the crime and impact on the community."
Giampa, 36, was indicted on six counts of sexual battery of a person under 12 years of age and three counts of promoting a sexual performance by a child.
"The decision to pursue the highest penalty reflects the gravity of the charges and the State Attorney's Office's dedication to holding criminals accountable for their actions," State Attorney Bill Gladson said.
Giampa was arrested in November after Lake County deputies identified him as the adult roughly raping a young boy in a homemade video that was allegedly found on Giampa's laptop, according to court records.
In the video, the man admitted that he knows the child did not enjoy the abuse, but that he "likes it more when [the victim] does not like it."
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The heavy punishment for sex crimes would be the first of its kind in the state under new legislation signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis in May.
"ARFU" is working on an editorial praising this pedophile for the "tender rebellion of his sexy love," and declaring him a "modern-day Joan of Arc, armed not with a spear but with rufies and stuffed animals."
In more grooming news, NYU is directing students to a website which offers them advice on gender neutral language. Such as referring to children by the approved gender-neutral term "crotch goblins."
A resource cited by New York University includes a "[d]ictionary of gender neutral language" that advocates for calling children "offspring," "spawnlings," and "Crotch Goblins," among other terms.
A newsletter sent out by the university's Office of Global Inclusion (OGI) on Dec. 13 features links to three "toolkits": "Faculty Toolkit on Digital Inclusion," "Pronouns," and "Trans Inclusive Practices in the Classroom."
...
At the bottom, the page lists resources regarding pronouns, including Pronouns.page, a site dedicated to "creating a source of information about nonbinary and gender neutral language."
The site features a "[d]ictionary of gender neutral terms," which recommends gender-neutral terms to use in place of commonly gendered words.
The dictionary suggests, among other words, using "postie" in place of "mailman," "mxtress" in place of "master" or "mistress," and "yinz" in place of "you guys." In addition, it proposes gender-neutral terms for grandparents, including "zaza," "grandpab," and "grandwa."
Additionally, the site features a glossary of LGBT-related terms, including "axolotlgender," defined as "[a] xenogender in which someone feels a strong connection to axolotls or other salamanders," as well as "catgender," defined as "[a] xenogender in which someone feels an extremely strong connection to cats or other felines ... created for autistic individuals in mind, but anyone may identify with catgender."
The LGBT Recruitment Officers have found the pool of vulnerable autistic children ripe for fishing.
I would prefer that, instead of indulging autistic children's fantasies (which seem to be behavior learned from other autistic "influencers" on social media), that we taught them to be normal adults.
But maybe that's a bridge too far. We're not supposed to divide the world into normal and abnormal, even though that's plainly how it divides up.
Fine.
But do I have to be dragged into an autistic child's fantasy world? We used to expect the mentally ill or mentally challenged to at least try to act like normal people. Now we are demanding that normal people adopt the worldviews of the mentally ill and mentally abnormal.
I'm not insane. Why am I being forced to act as if I were?
...
In demonstrating how to use the singular "they," the site quotes the personal website of a poet named Alok Vaid-Menon, using the example text of "ALOK (they/them) is a gender non-conforming writer and performance artist. Their distinctive style and poetic challenge to the gender binary have been internationally renowned."
Vaid-Menon has previously come under fire for a now-deleted alleged Facebook post sexualizing young girls. "There are no fairytales and no princesses here," Vaid-Menon allegedly wrote. "Little girls are also queer, trans, kinky, deviant, kind, mean, beautiful, ugly, tremendous, and peculiar. Your kids aren't as straight and narrow as you think they are. Like everybody else. I've been a cute little girl."
They drive harder towards sexualizing children than LT trying to sack a quarterback.
The Virginia Supreme Court ordered the reinstatement of a teacher who had been fired because of a religious objection to using fake genderbender pronouns.
Peter Vlaming taught French in the West Point School District for seven years. A female student claiming to be male had a new preferred name. Vlaming used the new preferred name but simply avoided using the student's preferred pronouns. The school demanded he use the student's preferred pronouns, even when the student was not present.
"Peter went out of his way to accommodate this student as he does all his students; his school fired him because he wouldn't contradict his core beliefs," Caleb Dalton of the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) had noted. "The school board didn't care how well Peter treated this student. It was on a crusade to compel conformity. He works hard to make his students feel welcomed. In his French class, he always calls his students by the name they choose. He even used the student's preferred masculine name and was willing to avoid using pronouns in the student's presence. He just didn't want to be forced to use a pronoun that offends his conscience. That's entirely reasonable, and it's his constitutionally protected right. Tolerance, after all, is a two-way street."
"Peter wasn't fired for something he said; he was fired for something he couldn't say," Chris Schandevel of ADF stated after the lawsuit was reinstated. "
Elon Musk is apparently not a fan of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, arguing that such initiatives are destructive and need to be ended.
The tech billionaire took to his social media platform, X, on Friday to declare that "DEI must DIE," saying, "The point was to end discrimination, not replace it with different discrimination."
Earlier this month, Republicans introduced legislation to outlaw all discrimination at any college taking federal money.
The College Admissions Accountability Act, introduced by Sen. J.D. Vance (R., Ohio) and Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.), would establish a special inspector general within the Education Department--separate from the Office of Civil Rights--to probe potential violations of the colorblind standard set forth in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ruled that race-conscious admissions programs violate the 14th Amendment. The bill would also bar schools that flout the decision from receiving any form of federal aid.
"Every student in America is entitled to equal protection under the law, regardless of their background," Vance told the Washington Free Beacon. "This bill creates the means necessary to enforce the Court's decision and hold colleges and universities accountable for illegal discrimination on the basis of race."
The proposed law comes as universities around the country are combing for loopholes in the affirmative action ban. Some institutions have overhauled their essay prompts to focus on race and identity--even though the Supreme Court said essays couldn't be used as a work-around--while others have advised faculty not to create a "record" of "discriminatory intent" and warned that socioeconomic preferences don't "do the trick demographically."
Columbia Law School even announced that it would require short video statements from applicants to provide "insight into their personal strengths." The plan, which would have given admissions officers a visual proxy for race, was junked after the Free Beacon asked Columbia for comment.
The proposed bureaucracy, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Unlawful Discrimination in Higher Education, would take direct aim at these evasions. "Following the Court's ruling, several American colleges and universities issued statements or unveiled new policies at odds with its letter and spirit," the bill reads. "Institutions of higher education, including their offices of admission, must comply with the Constitution and laws of the United States, as interpreted by the judiciary."
....
"The federal government has given the universities free rein to discriminate against white and Asian students," Christopher Rufo, the conservative activist behind numerous state laws banning critical race theory, said of the bill. "Senator Vance's proposed legislation will put a stop to this."
"There's a lot of money in sports and these coaches, their jobs are dependent on them winning," (female volleyballer) Macy Petty told "Varney & Co." guest host David Asman on Monday.
"So, if there's no rules from the NCAA saying that it has to be a female that occupies this female scholarship spot, then they're going to go out and recruit whoever's going to win. Unfortunately, because of biological advantages, they're going to go out and recruit men now."
OPINION: ALL
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The NCAA athlete's concerns come as a Division 1 school -- The University of Washington -- reportedly awarded a women's volleyball scholarship to 17-year-old transgender athlete Tate Drageset.
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Petty, like Gaines, is concerned about allegedly stolen opportunities, but shares a slew of other worries, including the risk of physical harm as young women face off against competitors with biological advantages.
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During the Monday segment, Asman pointed to an incident involving a female athlete in California who reportedly suffered long-term injuries after being hit with a ball spiked by a trans athlete.
"It's heartbreaking. We're seeing it from coast to coast," Petty replied. "Just last year, we saw something very similar in North Carolina. This is very uncommon for volleyball, but this is what happens when you put men on the court with other female athletes."
Jerry Seinfeld was personally protested about Israel, and told that he, personally, was "complicit in genocide." Remember, this is all about the Israeli government, and not just about harassing Jews in the street.
Pro-Palestinian protesters marching through downtown Syracuse last week gathered outside the Landmark Theatre to protest comedian Jerry Seinfeld's stand-up show, accusing the star of being "complicit in genocide" over his support for Israel.
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The graphic included in the post read, "No holiday entertainment as usual until Palestine is free!" and encouraged demonstrators to bring artwork, flags and signs.
The local DSA chapter coordinated with other groups, including the Syracuse Collective for Palestinian Liberation, the Syracuse chapter of the Party for Socialism and Liberation and the Resilient Indigenous Action Collective.
They sound fun.
Boston's mayor arranged for a Christmas party with no white people.
The progressive dream is Zimbabwe.
Wu this week defended holding an "elected officials of color only" holiday party after accidentally sending invites to white lawmakers only to rescind them shortly after.
"We had individual conversations with everyone, so people understand that it was truly just an honest mistake that went out in typing the email field," Wu told reporters.
"I've been a part of a group that gathers, representing elected officials of color across all different levels of government in Massachusetts," she added. "A group that has been in place for more than a decade, and the opportunity to create a space for people to celebrate and rotate who hosts."
Wu believes the primary issue is that an email was sent out in error rather than her using her position in government to conduct an exclusionary holiday event under the guise of celebrating diversity while being funded by tax dollars.
Progressives like Wu preach inclusion while purposefully excluding people, and promote diversity while encouraging their separation.
Despite what Wu says, the real reason they want their own Christmas party has nothing to do with "creating a space" for people of color to celebrate the holiday season.
The truth is that it's another way for them to celebrate themselves by pretending they're special for being a minority in government.
Minority progressives don't want equality, they want special treatment, and they always want one more than whatever the people without color get: including one more Christmas party.
A Fairfax, Virginia school board member -- you know this is going to be bad news -- did not swear his oath of office on a Bible but on a stack of so-called "banned" books, meaning gay pornography deemed not suitable for the school library.
A Fairfax County School Board member was sworn in for a second term on Wednesday on a stack of pornographic LGBTQIA2S books, many of which have been removed from schools for being sexually explicit and inappropriate for children.
The Virginia school board member, Karl Frisch, was reportedly sworn in on The Perks of Being a Wallflower, All Boys Aren't Blue, Gender Queer, Lawn Boy, and Flamer.
"All Boys Aren't Blue describes graphic sexual encounters involving boys, and Flamer contains sexual interactions. Gender Queer contains images of a boy performing fellatio on another man, as well as images of a boy masturbating," The Daily Caller Foundation pointed out."The images are so graphic that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had his live news feed cut after showing the images during a press conference in March."
Pennsylvania Democrat Senator Bob Casey praised the "diversity" effort of the CAIR founder who said he was "happy" to see Hamas slaughtering Israeli civilians. (He later claimed he only meant he was happy to see Gaza civilians going into Israel after Hamas terrorists had gone in. Whatever, Terrorist Scum.)
Pennsylvania Democrat Sen. Bob Casey heaped praise on the group whose leader recently made controversial remarks about Hamas' brutal invasion of Israel by previously heralding one of its local chapters' dedication to "diversity and equality" and its commitment to fight "discrimination and prejudice" in society.
Nihad Awad, the executive director and co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said he was "happy to see" the Oct. 7 Hamas invasion of Israel and that the Jewish state did not have a right to self-defense because it is an "occupying power."
Given the fact that no mechanical means of capturing the image of his face exists, I think I can tell what race he is: Vampire.
Man Arrested in Anti-Semitic Attack on DC Synagogue
The skyline of Washington, D.C. (Getty Images)
Charles Hilu
December 18, 2023
Washington, D.C., police on Sunday arrested a man who allegedly carried out an anti-Semitic attack on a synagogue in Georgetown.
FreeBeacon
Meet the Mainstream Media's Go-To Human Rights Experts. Spoiler Alert: They Hate Israel.
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"Second District officers responded to the 2800 block of N Street, Northwest, for the report of an individual spraying an unknown substance at two victims while shouting an anti-Semitic phrase," the Metropolitan Police Department said in a statement. "Responding officers located the suspect and placed him under arrest. As a precautionary measure, the suspect's vehicle was swept with no hazardous materials found. No injuries were reported."
Police arrested 33-year-old Brent Wood, who faces charges of simple assault and resisting arrest. The department is investigating the incident as a hate crime, though it stressed that the designation could change and that it does not mean prosecutors will pursue the case as such.
The Kesher Israel Congregation was the site of the attack, NBC News4 Washington reported. The suspect yelled, "Gas the Jews" during the attack, the affiliate reported, citing unnamed sources.
The media and police are imposing an absolute boycott of photos of this anti-semitic racist, so I feel very comfortable assuming he is a white middle-aged MAGA supporter, the way the media and The Regime like their violent anti-semites. I certainly will not take their utter refusal to run a picture of this man as evidence that he's not white at all!
He's about what you were expecting: Gay Colin Robinson.
Climate freaks have a new target: Christmas gifts.
Dennis Prager writes about the left's endless war on human joy, as a nutter writes tot the Daily Mail of her (of course it's a her) war on Christmas gift-giving.
Last year, she wrote, surrounded by wrapping paper and abandoned gifts, I suggested to my husband Chris that next time we shouldn't buy anything -- for each other or the children.
Not buying anything for my husband is trivial because he can buy for himself. But not buying presents for our two girls, aged six and three, is a trickier proposition...
We're increasingly aware of the global impact of our purchases. Everything we buy the kids will go into landfill...
With the planet on fire and plastics everywhere it seems like we are at a moment of reckoning and have been for some time...
I've forced this rule on the family, telling my mother, in-laws and the brothers and sisters not to buy the girls anything.
My sister was appalled and very cross that she will be thought of as the mean old aunt. Just because I want to strip the joy out of Christmas, why should she have to?
Prager comments:
Just remember this rule of life: Everything the Left touches, it destroys. That includes joy.
...
This woman's article encapsulates much of the darkness the Left represents and creates.
Where does this madness end?
With the deliberate culling of the human species:
From Beege Wellborn: the left crosses the last line, and states that human breathing is bad for the environment.
The Daily Mail:
Whether it's eating less meat or cycling instead of driving, humans can do many things to help prevent climate change.
Unfortunately, breathing less isn't one of them.
That might be a problem, as a new study claims the gases in air exhaled from human lungs is fueling global warming.
Methane and nitrous oxide in the air we exhale makes up to 0.1 per cent of the UK's greenhouse gas emissions, scientists say.
And that's not even accounting for the gas we release from burps and farts, or emissions that come from our skin without us noticing.
The new study was led by Dr Nicholas Cowan, an atmospheric physicist at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Edinburgh.
'Exhaled human breath can contain small, elevated concentrations of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), both of which contribute to global warming,' Dr Cowan and colleagues say.
'We would urge caution in the assumption that emissions from humans are negligible.'
I think something like that was probably said in the Wolf's Den.
In November, Cosmopolitan offered readers a guide for celebrating your abortion with a Satanic ritual.
No that's not an exaggeration.
The Satanic Abortion Clinic That's Pissed Off Pretty Much Everyone...and Might Beat the Bans Anyway
At first glance, The Satanic Temple's new telehealth venture, named after Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Jr.'s mom, seems like a social experiment in trolling. But as Cosmo reports, the fully credentialed clinic is serving real patients and has a real chance of breaking the religious right's grip on abortion law.
By Arielle Domb and Photographs by Joe LingemanPublished: Nov 14, 2023 8:30 AM EST
Lest you think this is just news coverage, no, Cosmo is really selling the idea of conducting a Satanic ritual. See their Instragam how-to guide.
Rose Fradusco Alito gave birth on April Fool's Day, 1950. Hundreds of women would die that year from botched illegal abortions in the United States, where the procedure had been widely banned for decades. But here in the Alito household in suburban New Jersey, all was grand. Rose thrilled at new motherhood. She was a schoolteacher, then a principal. Her husband Sam was a teacher too, then a director in state government. Their son, named after his father, would go on to do important things someday; Rose could feel it. When she died in 2013, Samuel Alito Jr. was all grown up, with a big fancy job on the U.S. Supreme Court.
It's unlikely that Rose ever considered abortion for herself (a few years before she passed away, she told reporters she opposed it). But what if her circumstances had been different--if her own life had been endangered by the pregnancy or if the fetus had a fatal anomaly or if Rose simply hadn't been ready for a child? What if she'd had a choice and access to safe, legal abortion care? Nearly 75 years later, in a reproductive rights landscape that feels like it's sliding back in time, one group decided to channel this policy fantasy into a new health care enterprise named in her honor.
a person holding a mirror
In TST's abortion ritual, the focus is on self-reflection in the context of science.
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Samuel Alito's Mom's Satanic Abortion Clinic. Does it sound like pure clickbait? Sure. But beneath the outlandish branding lies a sincere mission: The New Mexico--based telehealth practice, a legitimate medical entity run by an accredited clinical team, offers abortion care to patients within state lines. The staff prescribes abortion pills (at $91 per set, a competitive price) up until the eleventh week of pregnancy and offers 24/7 phone access to licensed medical personnel to anyone in need. It's just that they're also Satanists, members of a religious organization called The Satanic Temple.
Need a minute? No problem. This marrying of lightning-rod concepts is...a lot. Intentionally so, as The Satanic Temple (TST) attempts to take pervasive moral panic and flip it on its head, utilizing Satanists' reputation for defiance to expand access to urgent health care.
cosmo
Never mind that Satanists don't actually worship the devil. There are no ritual sacrifices or quests for supernatural powers at TST. In reality, Satanism is a nontheistic faith in which TST's roughly 1.5 million global members view Satan more like a mascot, one depicted not as a dark, omniscient deity but as a literary character--a venerable symbol of rebellion, rational inquiry, personal sovereignty, and resistance against tyranny. Followers champion science, religious diversity, and the separation of church and state, says Chalice Blythe, an ordained minister of Satan and the group's spokesperson for reproductive rights.
Satan symbolizes activism too. Since its founding in 2013, TST has campaigned against harmful pseudo science in mental health care settings, threatened school districts with legal action over harsh disciplinary practices like corporal punishment and solitary confinement, and launched and continues to lead a national crusade against so-called crisis pregnancy centers, which many organizations condemn as fake clinics that exist to deceive and dissuade patients from obtaining real abortion care.
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TST is also known for its guerrilla street theater. At one 2016 demonstration, temple members wearing adult diapers and baby masks disrupted a Christian-led anti-abortion protest with a BDSM stunt that involved flogging one another with whips, which one TST member said was a commentary on the Christian right's "fetishization of the fetal image." This type of public mischief is a core TST tenet, says Blythe. "The seriousness of our intent and beliefs is reflected in our work. Having a sense of humor about it is not a bad thing."
Even with all this, Samuel Alito's Mom's Satanic Abortion Clinic marks an audacious step, from abortion activism to abortion care. By TST's accounting, no other faith-based group in the U.S. has ever launched an abortion clinic. And that's the game-changing twist here: Unlike other abortion-pill-by-mail providers like Hey Jane or Abuzz, TST is a religion. Meaning its patients, who don't have to be Satanists themselves, are participating in a religious ritual. That's a key legal distinction TST hopes to leverage in its historic push to expand its clinic model beyond New Mexico--into states where abortion is otherwise banned.
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It's drawing inspiration from recent judicial rulings, like the ones in favor of Christian business owners denying services to LGBTQ+ people purely on religious grounds. Using a similar rationale, TST will attempt to claim the same religious protection, only in this case to provide services.
Seven months after the first clinic's opening and 15 months after Alito Jr. wrote the conservative majority opinion in Dobbs, the ruling that gutted America's hard-won federal abortion protections, Cosmopolitan caught up with TST organizers and clinic staff. There have been challenges, including pushback from leaders in the abortion-rights movement itself. And patient turnout has been low--as of late summer, about 50 people had come through the clinic's virtual doors. But that's okay, because this isn't the end game. It's only step one.
"I think it's genius," says Jessica* over hands-free while driving her kids around Albuquerque, running errands. The 37-year-old mother of three isn't a Satanist, but as of this week, she's a fan. She's also pregnant but not for long. A set of abortion pills is waiting for her back home, thanks to speedy shipping via Samuel Alito's Mom's Satanic team.
Jessica and her husband don't want any more children, especially given her history of super-high-risk pregnancies. Still, "It's hard. It's a hard decision," she says. She's decided to terminate this pregnancy within the next day or so, starting with an oral mifepristone pill in the morning followed by four misoprostol pills administered vaginally six hours later.
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cosmo
Behind the scenes of TST's fiery branding, a cheerfully named pharmacy called Honeybee Health fills and mails prescriptions.
She stumbled upon the clinic while googling options for abortion medication in New Mexico. At first, while clicking through the website, Jessica found TST's vibe "kind of off-putting." (She was raised Catholic but is no longer religious.) Nevertheless, the price was right. And anyway, she prides herself on being open-minded. "I did some more research before I reached out," she says. "Like, What is this? How do they operate? Are you able to see a practitioner?"
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You are, and Jessica was pleasantly surprised by the TST intake consult she did at home over Zoom. "The experience was just very supportive," she says. "I think that's the biggest thing--they really reinforce that this is your decision and your choice and that you are supported."
She listened with curiosity as the nurse described the optional ceremonial aspects of the Satanic abortion ritual: First, you find a quiet space. Bring a mirror if you can. Just before taking the medication, gaze at your reflection and focus on your personhood. Home in on your intent, your responsibility to you. Take a few deep, relaxing breaths. When you're ready, read the following tenet aloud: One's body is inviolable, subject to one's own will alone. Take the medication and immediately afterward, recite, Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs. Later, once your body expels the aborted tissue, return to your reflection. Focus again on your personhood, your power in making this decision. Complete the ritual by reciting a personal affirmation: By my body, my blood; by my will, it is done.
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The ritual allows for personalization. Patients can include as many loved ones as they'd like or light candles or even dress up--whatever makes them feel empowered. "We have ministers, myself included, who are available to walk people through the process," Blythe adds.
Jessica decided to incorporate some ceremonial aspects into her solo abortion experience. Why not? she thought. The overall messaging just clicked with her.
The Satanic chose New Mexico for a few reasons. It has about 3,300 members in the state, a robust base of potential need. New Mexico is also considered an abortion-rights stronghold, lacking oppressive laws dictating gestational limits, age restrictions, waiting periods, and mandatory "counseling." Here, unlike in neighboring states Texas and Oklahoma, it's still legal for doctors and nurse practitioners to prescribe abortion pills remotely and have them mailed to patients for safe use at home. Anyone traveling to New Mexico from out of state can use a P.O. box or a friend or family member's address--even a hotel's.
In practice, opening a virtual clinic in New Mexico is not particularly radical. When it began planning in earnest last summer, TST just had to navigate the usual administrative hurdles, like checking process boxes and figuring out how to block online trolls from clogging up the patient intake system. It was only after it ironed out its start-up kinks--and publicized its name--that the real rebellion began.
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graphical user interface, application
The predictable wave of fury from conservative media was instant. One Fox News columnist denounced the clinic as a "sinister charade" and "an assault on religious freedom." Hundreds of commenters chimed in to agree. "This is meant to enrage us," one wrote. For Tara Shaver, a Christian anti-choice organizer and spokesperson for a group called Abortion Free New Mexico, TST's clinic underscored her conviction that abortion is demonic child sacrifice. "Do our leaders realize that they have this unholy alliance with Satanists?" she says. "I think it just serves to show the origins of abortion and the type of people that champion it."
Critics on the reproductive justice side, meanwhile, condemned TST's presence as counterproductive. "The anti-abortion groups took it as proof that abortion is evil. It just played completely into their narrative--and strengthened it," says Joan Lamunyon Sanford, executive director of the New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. Her organization represents an established network of New Mexico faith groups working to protect and expand reproductive choice--it's part of a growing national movement that has seen leaders and congregants from Jewish, Episcopalian, Unitarian, Quaker, Muslim, Buddhist, and many other faiths fighting abortion restrictions on the grounds of religious freedom.
Sanford doesn't object to TST's self-proclaimed religious status or fundamental reproductive rights mission. "We have no issue with that," she says. "We have an issue with them using religion to be intentionally provocative--and coming in here assuming they know what we need." She says the New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice has no plan or desire to work with TST.
Blythe defends TST's provocation as a strategic tactic. "At this point, we don't have the luxury of trying to make abortion seem more palatable, because we tried that and now look where we are," she says. "So we're just going to come out with both arms swinging, completely defiant."
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a red cell phone
Getty Images/Pexels
Still, some criticism has stung. On Twitter, Indigenous Women Rising, a New Mexico--based reproductive justice group, blasted TST for setting up shop without building more trust and meaningful relationships among local organizers. "It's another form of colonization and white saviorism in New Mexico," one now-deleted post read. "As an abortion fund, a repro justice org, we don't want you here." (Jennifer Lim, communications and media director for Indigenous Women Rising, adds that TST has kind of fallen off her radar in the months since. "I haven't heard anyone talk about this clinic," she says. "The perception for me is that they came in with a bang--that a lot of this is attention-seeking and has less to do with the people served.")
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TST executive director Erin Helian, who oversees the clinic's operations and is of Cuban descent, admits it could have been more thorough in its grassroots outreach to reproductive justice groups and abortion funds, particularly BIPOC-led ones. "As a Hispanic woman, how did I not consider that angle?" she says. "It's a lesson for us. I really want to make sure we don't put ourselves in a position like that again."
If all goes according to plan, there will be an again, a next time. TST is making moves to bring what it calls its religious care model to Indiana and Idaho, states where activists, providers, and lawmakers have so far been less successful in shoring up basic abortion protections. "We jumped on that pretty much the month of opening," Helian remembers. Have they made mistakes along the way? Without question, she says, but they're powering forward, amid high stakes and real risks.
Last June, two weeks before Alito Jr. and his fellow conservative justices killed Roe v. Wade, someone tried to burn down TST's national headquarters, in Salem, Massachusetts. A doorbell cam captured the incident: Wearing a T-shirt printed with "GOD," a man strides up to the front porch, pours out a flammable liquid, and casually flicks a lighter to set the structure ablaze. He then flees the scene, leaving behind a backpack that reportedly contained a Bible and a copy of the U.S. Constitution. (Firefighters quickly extinguished the flames. No one was hurt.) Police arrested a suspect, who was later indicted on a felony arson count among other charges. He pleaded not guilty, and the case is now stalled in court while he undergoes monitoring for mental competency. However it shakes out, you could say the incident offers a parable of the larger systemic forces TST may confront as it maneuvers to infiltrate even more hostile territory.
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alex cooper
This story is from the November/December issue. GET THE MAG
TST's lawsuits aimed at expanding into Idaho and Indiana are now underway, placing the group's religious beliefs and practices in the crosshairs of judicial interpretation. The federal government has no mechanism in place for granting "official" religious status or protections to any group. When disputes arise, the courts decide. There's no guarantee TST will prevail in Idaho and Indiana. But there's a real possibility.
The group's attorney, W. James Mac Naughton (specialty: "unique solutions for unique problems"), pulls a lot of creative constitutional levers in his legal filings. There's the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, which he says could be interpreted to classify the uterus as private property that comes with a natural set of ownership rights, including the right to not be snatched away by an uninvited fetus without consent or compensation. Then there's the Prohibition of Involuntary Servitude Clause in the Thirteenth Amendment, which Mac Naughton uses to describe the occupancy of the uterus by an unwanted "prenatal person," forcing the uterus's owner to render services like heat generation and nutrient procurement. His suits also invoke the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to target Idaho's and Indiana's narrow allowances for abortion in cases of rape or incest, characterized by TST as a discriminatory exception that burdens people who become involuntarily pregnant by accident rather than force.
a person wearing a garment
A 1993 federal law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act comes into play, too, as a pointed reminder that government entities are barred from "substantially burdening" a person's exercise of religion--including, Mac Naughton and TST argue, the Satanic abortion ritual. For good measure, their Idaho complaint throws in a state code known as Free Exercise of Religion Protected, which safeguards "the ability to act or refusal to act in a manner substantially motivated by a religious belief."
"There have been two types of challenges to the abortion bans: those filed by abortion providers and those filed by religious believers. The TST innovation is to combine the two, which strengthens their standing," explains Marci Hamilton, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert in religious liberty litigation. "They've filed some of the most intelligent briefs around the country. They've been very good at figuring out where to go."
It's a layered plan, crafted with backup arguments to the backup arguments, Mac Naughton says. "The logic flows, step-by-step. It all holds together." If TST were to win an exception to state bans, it could become the biggest, and only, abortion medication provider in either Idaho or Indiana.
Time will tell if it's a winning strategy. In the meantime, the existing Samuel Alito's Mom's Satanic Abortion Clinic is focused on patient care and on raising funds, which come entirely from charitable donations and merch sales. It's had to make cutbacks recently--from five nurses to three (with at least two working only part-time), and it has outsourced some on-call shifts to a more affordable third-party provider. TST's legal costs are currently hovering around $15,000 per month, and that's on top of the $12,000 monthly minimum it takes to run the clinic. Says Helian, echoing many abortion care workers in 2023, "It's a constant struggle to keep our heads above water."
This is reproductive freedom work on the cultural periphery--part blessing, part curse. "People underestimate us and think we're just trolling as a joke. But there's a gift to not being taken seriously," Helian says. "It gives us a bit of a David vs. Goliath impact. We're able to sneak in at the right moment and shoot with our sling."
*Name has been changed.
An exorcist was asked for comment. She said you should probably not compound the sin of abortion by then holding a Satanic celebration of it.
An experienced exorcist is responding to a recent Cosmopolitan magazine story and social media post detailing a "satanic abortion ceremony."
"In previous eras, those who practiced evil kept to the shadows and remained hidden," Msgr. Stephen Rossetti, research associate professor of practice at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., told Our Sunday Visitor. "Today, our society has gotten so dysfunctional that evil freely operates in the open and society accepts it, even condones it. Someone needs to say: 'The Emperor has no clothes.'"
Msgr. Rossetti, who also leads the St. Michael Center For Spiritual Renewal, a non-profit that prays with those spiritually suffering and in need of healing and deliverance, has served as an exorcist for the Archdiocese of Washington for more than 15 years. The licensed psychologist has written several books, including "Diary of an American Exorcist: Demons, Possession, and the Modern-Day Battle Against Ancient Evil."
He made his comments after Cosmopolitan, a women's magazine, described a "satanic abortion ceremony" step-by-step in a story online and in an Instagram post published in November.
"So how does a satanic abortion ceremony even work?" the post with images of upside down crosses asks. "Here's a simple one [the Satanic Temple] recommends."
Satanism and abortion
The larger story featured the Satanic Temple, which says it does not believe in Satan or the supernatural, but, at the same time, considers itself a religious organization and provides "religious medication abortion care." Its online clinic based in New Mexico offers to mail abortion pills to women in that state "who wish to perform The Satanic Temple's Religious Abortion Ritual."
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The "ritual" encourages women to focus on themselves and concludes with them saying, "By my body, my blood; by my will, it is done." The phrasing contrasts with the Mass, when the priest repeats Christ's words during the consecration: "For this is my Body, which will be given up for you" and "for this is the chalice of my Blood ... which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins."
"Satanists will often take Catholic rituals and sacraments and do what we call a 'Satanic inversion,'" Msgr. Rossetti said. "They will take that which is holy and desecrate it such as in a Black Mass. Evil takes the truth and then inverts or distorts it."
He commented on the connection with abortion.
"I had previously been told by a former Satanist that he did rituals to dedicate the abortion and the fetuses to Satan," Msgr. Rossetti said. "We Catholics knew that an abortion was a grievous sin; the connection of abortion with Satanism only confirms it and casts a clear, dark, dark shadow over all pro-abortion forces."
Among other things, the Cosmopolitan story cites a woman, identified as "Jessica," who was raised Catholic and plans to go through with this kind of abortion by incorporating "some ceremonial aspects into her solo abortion experience."
"I would hope that all those who support abortions or those personally considering an abortion would rethink their stance," Msgr. Rossetti said. "Do you really want to be aligned with Satanists?"
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Other exorcists have more generally commented on abortion and the demonic. As chief exorcist of the Archdiocese of Washington, Father Luke Clark, OP, previously called abortion an "open door for the demonic" during one interview.
"[W]e've had cases where that's exactly how the demons were able to possess the individual," he said. "The effects of abortion are devastating. The killing of the child, the mother's fear, despair, guilt, shame, self-hatred and belief she has committed an unforgivable sin all point to the atmosphere of hell."
"Yet long as we live," he added, "we can repent and be forgiven of any sin, including abortion."
Church teaching on abortion