Desperately Seeking Satan: Media and the Shooter

For that segment of my audience that can spend years intermittently declaring that they “can no longer support” my work following my persistent failures to faithfully and stridently dictate their own political views to our non-theistic community in a demand of conformity, the fact that I reaffirmed our organizational, long-standing position of nonviolence following the shooting of a right-wing public figure whom I had publicly been at odds with struck them as a display of unconscionable hypocrisy. Why this? some demanded to know. As I explained, the general social shock of an apparently polarization-driven assassination left our active congregations, who often engage publicly with their communities in our name, uniquely imperiled —a circumstance not easily appreciated by those for whom all current events are viewed through the same scrolling feeds, none more proximate than the others, all part of the same neverending, incoherent, emotion-driven social media discourse. It would not be long, experience told me, before the killing of a conservative Christian influencer would be deemed “Satanic,” and if so much as a friend’s nephew’s classmate of the shooter had been found to like a social media post by The Satanic Temple, there would almost certainly be no small effort made to paint us as propagators of a radicalizing philosophy motivating violent killings. Those wishing to justify violence against us were surely just as disappointed in our nonviolent position as those who wished us to justify their violent fantasies.

Of course, public statements were not enough, as I knew they would not be, but it left those desperate to tie us to the slaying somehow with little to work with, resulting in some ludicrous fact-stretching from a few outlets. The New York Post was the first, publishing a piece with the headline, US companies fire pilots, teachers, health care workers for mocking Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

“Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers, a Wichita, Kansas-based dining chain, condemned remarks from one of its employees,” the Post piece reported, explaining that the offending employee “allegedly asked for donations to the Satanic Temple and wrote after Kirk’s death: ‘Another one bites the dust,’ according to screenshots of social media posts.” Of course, bundling these two supposedly off-limits behaviors is confusing and outright nonsensical. One can not be seen as necessarily tied to the other in any way, and “Another one bites the dust” falls well short of advocacy for violence. Further, religious identities are a protected class, and it is hard to believe that Freddy’s would openly cite their own religious discrimination as an aggravating factor in their decision to terminate anybody. On the formerly-known-as-Twitter social media platform, Freddy’s posted, in reply to the now-deleted post displaying screenshots of the employee’s commentary, “The opinions expressed by this individual in no way represent Freddy’s views. We do not condone any act of violence. This person is no longer employed by the company.” But who did condone violence? If I were to have posted, upon his passing, “Another one bites the dust. RIP Ozzy Osbourne,” I suspect that exactly nobody would have even assumed that I was expressing contempt toward the man, much less advocating for violence. (In fact, a search of the term “Another one bites the dust. RIP” yields a long list of what appears to be lamentations upon particular passings.) Of course, Osbourne was not shot and killed, but the fact that the phrase can be used regardless of how he passed only further emphasizes the point.

Had the Freddie’s employee posted about attending a Bible study group, this would not have been deemed worth mentioning by the Post at all, serving to validate my fear that “if so much as a friend’s nephew’s classmate of the shooter had been found to like a social media post by The Satanic Temple, there would almost certainly be no small effort made to paint us as propagators of a radicalizing philosophy motivating violent killings.” One would hope that the New York Post “journalist,” Taylor Herzlich, would have bothered to check to see if The Satanic Temple had made a statement about the shooting (which we had, and had released well preceding the article’s publication) before publicizing the implied association between ourselves and the supposedly violence-glorifying social media post…which itself stretches credibility to interpret as such. I actually suspect that Herzlich did check for The Satanic Temple’s statement, but simply ignored it in favor of misleading innuendo.

But if The New York Post was stretching to name The Satanic Temple, The Daily Caller went through absurdist-level contortions to implicate Satanism in Charlie Kirk’s killing. The piece, by one Mary Rooke, was titled, Transgender Boyfriend of Charlie Kirk Shooter Reportedly Has Ties To Demonic Trend. The “demonic trend” in question? Furries.

According to the co-founder of the Anthropomorphic Research Project, Sharon E. Roberts, writing for The Conversation:

Furries are people who have an interest in anthropomorphism, which specifically refers to giving human characteristics to animals. In its most distilled form, furries are a group of people who formed a community — or fandom — because they have a common interest in anthropomorphic media, friendships and social inclusion.

[...] About 95 per cent of furries develop their own unique avatar-like character called a fursona. The product of deep reflection, fursonas can represent idealized versions of the self that are imbued with positive characteristics, like being sociable, funny and less anxious.

What does this have to do with the Charlie Kirk shooting? According to Mary Rooke for The Daily Caller, furries are an “offspring of transgender ideology,” and Kirk’s shooter (Robinson), had a romantic trans partner (Twiggs), who “had an affinity for ‘furry’ culture.”

And what does this have to do with Satanism? Mary Rooke found that there are some furries who also identify as Satanists. Scouring the internet, admitting herself on former Twitter that she spent “hours scouring furry forums and satanic sites,” Rooke only managed to produce a few quotes declaring cross-affiliation between Satanism and furry culture.

I did not need to spend hours poring over obscure forums to discredit Rooke, however. I simply searched “Christian furries” and immediately found an organization called the “Christian Furry Fellowship” that declares itself to be the home page for “a group of Christian furries and fans assembled together to serve God, encourage one another and make a positive influence on the Furry Fandom at large.” They are “an interdenominational ministry, mostly based in our IRC channel and website, with teaching and resources from the historic and Reformed Christian faith.”

Rooke’s furry culture-The Satanic Temple connection, on the other hand, is made by way of an old interview she found that quoted a TST member in Maine, and (now sadly deceased) part-time employee of our headquarters in Salem, MA, Gemini De Chant, who was a proud furry himself. In the interview he said that he had witnessed other furries visit the exhibits of our art gallery.

Of course, my point here is not that furries are necessarily more Christian than Satanic, nor do I seek to distance us from members who may have participation in furry culture. My point is that there is no reason to think that furries are necessarily Christian or Satanic. The religious beliefs of furries are likely as diverse as any other subculture that is not already explicitly religious. There was no reason to think that any particular furries would necessarily be Satanists, and Rooke failed to make a case that anybody should assume otherwise. If she were trying to falsify her idiotic thesis, Rooke herself might have checked to see about the existence of Christian furries. Since she apparently had not, I decided to inform her of the Christian Furry Fellowship via former Twitter.

Rooke’s reply: she immediately blocked me.

As absurd and irritating as these desperate efforts to tie us to the Kirk murder are, no matter how tenuously, I was actually expecting much worse, and at least The New York Post and Daily Caller engaged only in tortured, bizarre associations of fact, rather than the wholesale false creation of fact. Their invocation of our name is unquestionably irresponsible, but not actionable, and arguably too absurd for any literate person to even take seriously. I would like to believe that the real damage done by these embarrassing excuses for journalists were done to the outlets that discredit themselves by publishing their abysmal work.