The Satanic Temple Poised For Victory in First Circuit Legislative Prayer Suit
Last August, a judge scoffingly discarded a lawsuit that The Satanic Temple had brought against the City of Boston for its clearly discriminatory City Council meeting prayer policy which, before we brought suit, allowed council members themselves to choose people from the public to deliver prayers (sometimes straight up religious sermons) and get paid for it through public funds. We did not realize that those giving the prayers before the council were getting paid when we tried to get on the schedule to deliver an invocation, and the Mayor, Michelle Wu, who, as a council member, penned the outrageous denial letter to The Satanic Temple asserting that Boston has a "non-discriminatory" invitation-only policy, put an end to the payments soon after we began our legal efforts.
Federal Judge Angel Kelley, who I would not be surprised to learn is a personal friend of Michelle Wu in the limited network of corrupt Boston politics, was openly contemptuous of The Satanic Temple from the beginning, denying us even the opportunity to depose Wu (she's just too important of an official for that), passively allowing Boston to miss several deadlines, while rigorously interrogating our every move, and eventually issuing a thoughtlessly dismissal of the case. As usual, the polarized extremes of the political spectrum had the same response: relief and applause. The theocratic right tried to contextualize it as evidence that the courts should not, and will not, take us seriously as a religion. The nihilistic selfie stick social reformers on the other side tried to contextualize it as our own ignorance of the system while congratulating themselves for staying the course on their own tactics of posting over-generalized catch-phrase laden open letters to nobody in particular on Facebook.
Yesterday, however, we brought our appeal to the First Circuit in oral arguments where a three-judge panel, for the first time, actually deliberated upon the legal issue at hand, leading legal observers to strongly anticipate our victory, given the strength of our claim and Boston’s failure to provide any convincing and credible answers to support their position. Boston’s complacency in constructing a non-argument for a corrupt lower court, which was clearly and intentionally operating in their favor, now may be working against them, as they are locked into trying to square their incoherent justifications and rationalizations before a Circuit Court panel that is apparently unwilling to completely ignore the letter and spirit of the law, as Angel Kelley was.
I think it is safe to assume that we will have a ruling within the next 3 months.
Read some of the coverage regarding yesterday’s oral arguments here:
https://www.courthousenews.com/first-circuit-unsure-if-boston-can-keep-the-devil-at-bay/
The same “non-discriminating” mayor that did this and called only the distribution of emails to the entire City Council list the “honest mistake”:
https://nypost.com/2023/12/14/news/boston-mayor-michelle-wu-defends-electeds-of-color-holiday-party-after-invitation-backlash/amp/
I can't believe they were getting paid with public funds. That's next level!