'Church Of Satan' Trends Following Controversial Supreme Court Decisions

The Church of Satan trended on Twitter Tuesday, following the announcement of a Supreme Court decision in the case Carson v. Makin which will force states to fund religious education with taxpayer money. Users online joked that the Church of Satan should offer taxpayer-funded religious education for students in order to troll the Christian religious schools that will likely benefit from the ruling.

Some pointed out that it is not the Church of Satan but the Satanic Temple which has a long history of trolling Christians in the legal system.

Everyone keeps making the same joke about the Church of Satan opening schools to own the conservatives. Please recognize that it is the @satanic_temple_ , not the Church of Satan, that brilliantly uses religious freedom laws to fight for secular rights.

— Still thinking about Bufflo (@TheCrownOfHorns) June 21, 2022

The specifics of the case have to do with a voucher program for kids in rural areas of Maine where schools are either far apart or non-existent. Maine’s solution to this problem was to give families vouchers to pay for private schools so long as they weren’t specifically religious schools. The conservative justices on the Court voted to overturn Maine’s rule 6-3, allowing state funds to go to religious schools -- a move that runs contrary to centuries of judicial interpretation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which mandates separation of church and state.

Sotomayor is not having it today. pic.twitter.com/DkjmaFNVEG

— Anthony Michael Kreis (@AnthonyMKreis) June 21, 2022

Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent to the case was widely shared on Twitter. In the dissent, she argues that the decision in Carson v. Makin is part of a larger pattern in which Christian priorities and ideas are increasingly favored by the Court, challenging the separation of church and state.

Sotomayor: I feared that the Court was 'lead[ing] us . . . to a place where separation of church and state is a constitutional slogan, not a constitutional commitment…Today, the Court leads us to a place where separation of church and state becomes a constitutional violation.

— (((DeanObeidallah))) (@DeanObeidallah) June 21, 2022

Supreme Court decisions are announced in batches, so another controversial decision about health insurance rules was released on Tuesday as well. In that decision, the conservative majority joined by outgoing Justice Stephen Breyer ruled that health insurance providers could pay out less to cover dialysis treatments for patients with chronic end-stage renal disease. Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent to the ruling featured a memorable passage about yarmulkes.

An interesting and helpful passage from Kagan explaining how reducing benefits for outpatient dialysis obviously targets patients with end stage renal disease because they are essentially the only people receiving dialysis. Citing Lawrence v. Texas! https://t.co/LR4UQYMq3f pic.twitter.com/ETfHV0H6dt

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) June 21, 2022

Court watchers on both sides of the aisle thought that maybe a long-anticipated ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization would come out Tuesday, following the leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion that would overturn much of Roe v. Wade. It now looks likely that the ruling will be released on Thursday. The public is also awaiting landmark rulings on the future of Miranda rights, border policy, , separation of powers , and the Environmental Protection Agency's regulatory authority.

The year is 2048The war in Ukraine will end any day nowAll of the homes are owned by investment companiesWe still don't know what the court's ruling in Dobbs is

— Cranky Federalist, Type of Guy R&D Analyst (@CrankyFed) June 21, 2022

The Supreme Court has opted to publish rulings for this latest batch of cases online rather than in a public ceremony, as is usually the case. High fences surround the Supreme Court building in Washington, DC and personal security for all the Justices has been boosted following an incident with a gunman at Justice Brett Kavanaugh's house a few weeks ago. This all comes as Justice Clarence Thomas has come under increasing fire for his wife’s association with Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.