Yup, Even The Official Church of Satanism Is Pro-Choice

During the protests in Austin as restrictive Texas abortion bill HB2 was being voted on by the state Senate, a group of pro-choice activists began to yell (satirically) “Hail Satan!” in order to drown out oppositional pro-life chanting. PolicyMic reports that the authorized (and one unauthorized) Church of Satan group has responded to this appropriation of their sentiment.

A Twitter that calls itself the UK Church of Satan spoke on behalf of the pro-lifers:

But Magus Peter H. Gilmore, High Priest of the Church of Satanism, told CNN that there’s no there no actual official UK Church of Satan, and later a Tweet from the group confirmed that it was only a conduit for UK Satanists to connect with others who share their beliefs worldwide.

Gilmore does agree that yelling “Hail Satan” in that context was “both ludicrous and meaningless.” However, he made it clear that the official stance of Satanism on the issue of the abortion debate is pro-choice. (Oh, and they also agree with same-sex marriage, incidentally.)

“We generally consider the use of abortion to be the purview of the woman whose body is carrying the child… so religion should neither force upon nor deny an abortion for any woman, in our thinking. Freedom with responsibility is the hallmark of civilized behavior to the Satanist.”

All said and done, I’m pretty sure I have more in common with Satanism than Judaism. Who knew?