Introduction
In the summer of 2022, the Supreme Court overruled the nearly fifty-year-old precedent of Roe v. Wade, eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion. This was one of several decisions in which the newly minted conservative supermajority undermined what could be seen as progressive precedents. At the same time, the Court has been elevating religious liberty claims and strengthening legal protections for religious individuals and organizations (predominantly Christian). For anybody who cares about the “so-called separation of . . . church and state,” this conservative Christian reformation taking place in the nation’s highest court is a cause for concern.
However, the narrative that religious liberty claims belong exclusively to the Christian right is misguided and untrue. Many such cases have been brought by religious claimants addressing progressive issues such as immigrant rights, LGBTQ+ rights, religious drug use, and abortion. In fact, in the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, there have been several lawsuits filed by religious organizations challenging state abortion bans and seeking religious exemptions. Among these complainants is The Satanic Temple, a religious organization that has been fighting for the reproductive rights of its members for over eight years via its “Religious Reproductive Rights” campaign. The Satanic Temple has filed two post-Dobbs complaints challenging state abortion bans in Idaho and Indiana, and an appeal of an unfavorable ruling in Texas. The Satanic Temple has also launched numerous other campaigns and brought lawsuits for protection of its religious rights on other issues ranging from after-school prayer groups to religious discrimination from public officials.
Part I of this Note will begin with an overview of the evolution of free exercise jurisprudence, particularly its recent expansions under the new Supreme Court supermajority following the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett. It will then give a brief history of The Satanic Temple’s origins, its belief system, and the group’s early legal battles to defend its religious rights. With that context, Part I will then outline The Satanic Temple’s abortion practices and its pre-Dobbs legal battles for religious liberty, culminating in a breakdown of its post-Dobbs complaints which seek a religious exemption from state abortion bans. After considering The Satanic Temple’s legitimacy as a religion (particularly in light of their recognition by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)) and thus its entitlement to constitutional and state-level legal protections, Part II analyzes The Satanic Temple’s free exercise claims under the current state of religious liberty jurisprudence. Although The Satanic Temple has a compelling case to win its abortion exemptions on the merits, the conservative bent of the supermajority and what scholars have deemed “free exercise preferentialism” create a perilous legal landscape for these claims. Part III then proposes that regardless of the legal outcome of its cases, The Satanic Temple performs a valuable national function: on one hand, it may win important and elusive religious rights for minority groups; but even if its cases fail, it still brings significant public attention to the hypocrisy of the courts and the religious discrimination faced by said minority groups.