In case you need to know what Satanic Panic is: here
In case you need to know what Hexennacht is: here

One of the things that I wanted to take the time to touch on, as someone who gradually “came out” in her blog as a Satanist (affiliated with The Satanic Temple, at that), is that even though we may have, comparatively speaking, made strides toward being more safely and easily being able to declare our religious affiliations in some places — or lack thereof, depending on how you want to word them — it can still be dangerous to “out” yourself as a religion that is not the majority religion, especially under the Trump Administration (and especially if it becomes clear through whatever means that you are LBGT, or as I have sometimes worded it, “not an able-bodied, white-passing man”). Outing yourself as a Satanist is perhaps the diciest of all, and it can potentially have repercussions in child custody cases and job applications if it is revealed in the former or disclosed in the latter. One word of advice, though: you do not have to disclose your religious affiliation on a job application, even if the interviewer asks… and for them to “require” that is illegal.

However, plenty of divorced or separated parents — and I mean plenty — have fought over the most banal of religious issues as they pertain to their child or children, so for one parent to be outed as a Satanist, or volunteer the information that they are one, is pretty much analogous to throwing a hand grenade into the proceedings if you ask me… at least assuming that both parents are active participants in their children’s lives and are litigating with the intent to be able to have an equal say in the upbringing of said children’s lives. Sometimes it is actually court-ordered that one parent is to be the parent that has “final decision-making say” in the religious instruction of the children (or, conversely, if this becomes something that it is clear that the parents will never agree on, that both parents are forbidden from making their children “active, registered participants” in their religious denomination… which basically means that they can not baptize them or enroll them). However, for one parent to be the individual that is granted that final decision-making say is only generally done when the child (or children) have had a history of being brought up in that religion so that they can continue to be brought up in it to give them the continued regularity of that religion’s influence, especially when their lives will be shifted with the divorce or separation of their parents. Unless, of course, it’s Satanism. And then it’s, like I’ve said, like throwing a really judgmental hand grenade into the proceedings nearly all of the time because of nearly everyone’s misconceptions as to what Satanism entails.

And yet perhaps it is the most ironic of all that Satanists are generally the least judgmental and pushy.

The governor of our state actually did the sensible thing that he should have “bit the bullet on” weeks ago and issued an executive order mandating that all schools in the state stay closed for the rest of the academic year. Naturally, we have no shortage of numpties on his social networking pages commenting with varying levels of distaste on this… in the midst of a global pandemic with a 4.1% mortality rate taking into consideration all fifty states. I mean, comparatively speaking, there aren’t this many actual numpties (or at least I would hope not), even though they seem like they are a lot louder than they actually are concentrating themselves on things like his Facebook page, shrieking like nearly actual banshees. Some of them are going so far as to deny that we are in the midst of an actual global pandemic, comparing this to the common cold or the flu, screaming about how we need to “bring the economy back to life” (with what? actual skeletons? okay, those of us who can work can go back to work, at the cost of human lives, and then we’ll all be dead, because of the economy, when this thing absolutely ravages us, all because you would not listen to actual scientists), insisting that “only the sick need to stay at home, and us healthy folks can go out and go back to work”… okay, forget how you healthier folks, you folks who can stay asymptomatic for up to fourteen days can literally bring it to our doorsteps. Can my estate sue you if you kill me? I think I’d like it to… if you kill me.

This has also brought the anti-vaxers out in full force whenever a potential, possible vaccine for the coronavirus is brought up. At one point I actually responded with, “my family will keep our vaccines, yours can keep natural family planning,” to a Catholic who invoked “the Nuremberg clause” in an actual conversation. This same Catholic also claimed to have taken many science courses along with his wife, tried to flaunt degrees, and was also apparently anti-vax. This did not surprise me given that they were Catholic.

(Strange fact: Bub’s paternal grandmother tried to “justify” me getting an IUD after his birth as “it’s not a sin because she’s not Catholic” after, for some strange reason, Bub’s father saw fit to tell her that I had gotten one. After she had a tantrum over it, which he… saw fit to tell me about. I was far more annoyed that he saw fit to have this conversation with his mother, and to tell his mother something that never should have been brought up in conversation with her. But it never wound up mattering, because I never became Catholic, no one in my family unit never became Catholic [and will never become Catholic insofar as it requires my consent], and Catholic doctrine has never mattered to me and will never matter to me for as long as I live.)