Last Tuesday, the United States Supreme Court upheld an Indiana law, HEA 1337,j that requires burial or cremation of fetal remains.
Well, guess who has a problem with that? Other than the masses of pro-aborts who cringe at anything that humanizes unborn children (who are sadly still being aborted in Indiana, make no mistake), The Satanic Temple (TST) has also voiced their objection.The reason? It violates their “religious liberty.”
It’s hard to believe The Satanic Temple has any convictions on which they stand, but apparently they fundamentally disagree with burying or cremating the remains of a human being, and they’ve released a statement indicating they do not intend to comply with the law.
Since being officially recognized as a church by the US Internal Revenue Service in April, TST has apparently been feeling antsy to stretch their religious liberty muscles.
TST claims their members should be immune from Indiana’s burial law under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 which was enacted to protect religious freedom when there is a religious practice that conflicts with state laws. Apparently, improperly disposing of human remains is a religious practice, but what else do you expect from the Satanic Church?
The Arkansas Times Magazine reports:
One of The Satanic Temple’s fundamental tenets is the inviolability of one’s body. Members of The Satanic Temple believe that non-viable fetal tissue is part of the woman who carries it, and as such, state impositions of ceremonial requirements dictating its disposal, barring any plausible medical or sanitary concerns, is a violation of TST’s Free Exercise allowing Satanists to contextualize the termination of a pregnancy on their own terms, with deference to their own religious beliefs. As such, TST affirms that this rule violates their religious beliefs and asserts that their members may refuse to adhere.
So, the Satanists believe that fetal remains are somehow part of the woman’s body despite the science that clearly proves that every human being —even at the earliest stages of development—has separate and distinct DNA from his or her mother, as well as its own heartbeat.
Nonetheless, Satanists insist that any state that attempts to tell them how to dispose of the remains of aborted babies is a violation of their beliefs since TST permits its members “to contextualize the termination of a pregnancy on their own terms,” whatever that means.
Under Indiana law, hospitals, abortion clinics, and other healthcare facilities are barred from using sanitary landfills for the disposal of human remains. The state only permits burial or cremation. After all, fetal remains are human remains and in civilized society we ought not to dispose of human remains at the local dump.
Of course, in a civilized society we also ought not murder unborn children in the womb, so the law is mostly just a poignant reminder of the barbaric nature of abortion.
TST is adamant that their members be exempted from participation in any such respectable procedure. In a statement on the issue, TST spokesman Lucien Greaves said, “To be clear, members of The Satanic Temple will not be made to pay for these punitive, superfluous, and insulting burials. We claim exemption on religious liberty grounds, and we will almost certainly prevail in the courts if we are forced to fight.”
The Satanic Temple will continue to fight for their right to desecrate human remains in a way that best honors their religious convictions and principles. The “church” whose only law is “do what thou wilt,” a dressed-up way of saying “do whatever you want,” wants the legal right to determine which laws they want to follow. Let that sink in.
This is an adulteration of “religious liberty” that, at its core, violates the right to life of unborn children who deserve to be protected in the womb. This isn’t a religious issue, it’s a moral issue, and every single man, woman, and child in this nation has the right to live. Period. No matter what TST does, we will never stop fighting for that right.
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