SIO119: Getting Satanic with Jex Blackmore

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:29 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 119. I'm your host, Thomas Smith. Alright, today I have an interview with Jex Blackmore. She is the spokeswoman for the Satanic Temple. Their work has come up a lot on this podcast and on Opening Arguments because they, they use creative methods to point out the absurdities of religious laws at times and other things. Jex is going to tell us all about it, but now this is actually an unplanned two-parter, it was total coincidence, but I booked Jex and then Opening Arguments booked Lucien Greaves, who is one of the founders of the Satanic Temple, he will be on tomorrow's episode of Opening Arguments, and in that episode we're going to get more into the legal battles and talk more law, today we reference it a bit but we're more behind the scenes of Jex's Because.

0:01:26 Thomas: Jex blogged her abortion, that's a really interesting thing we're going to talk about, so that's It's a satanic week, and here's part one, it's really good.

0:01:46 Thomas: Jex Blackmore, thank you for joining me on the show. So I'm really excited to talk to you because on this show and actually on other shows, I've referred to the Satanic Temple before because you guys do some really cool work and frankly sometimes some hilarious and really biting work that I think is just so brilliant. So I am really happy to have you here. But I also, you know, I and I'm guessing a lot of the listeners don't know much about about the sort of the history, the inner workings, and how you came to be. So I'm wondering if you could take us through the history of the Satanic Temple a little bit, and maybe how it interacts with your history.

0:01:49 Jex: It's my pleasure. Thank you. Sure. So the Satanic Temple was formed technically in 2013 by Lucien Greaves and Malcolm Jarry, who were two friends, and they realized that, you know, with certain types of legislation and privileges that were being granted to religious groups, that a satanic organization could also benefit from those same exemptions and privileges as well if they kind of of use the same logic model as traditional religious groups were using, politically speaking. So I think the first action they did was to give a talk at Harvard. And it was at that time that I found out about them as someone who is already a self-proclaimed and practicing Satanist.

And I was very curious. So in 2014, I met up with Lucien and we realized that we have very very similar ideas about Satanism, as specifically as it applies to activism, as it being something that contemporary Satanism has often left out of the practice. So we started working together, year and a half or two years after that, I formed the first chapter in Detroit because we really wanted to take the Satanic Temple to the streets and allow people to really join and participate on the ground all over the world. So it came up with a chapter model, and now it's expanded to over 20 chapters.

0:03:50 Thomas: That's so cool. I've always been a littlebit confused, though, if it, I mean, how genuine is it? Is it like a mixture of people? Because you said like you already were a Satanist before this, could you talk a bit about maybe how did you become a Satanist or what led you to that and the differences between what you were doing, I guess, before the Satanic Temple and then what the Satanical Temple is doing?

0:04:13 Jex: So I up in the church and participated in a pretty traditional church, had a pretty traditional experience as a teenager. And I started to to realize, though, that the foundation of the church's teachings was very much an attempt to control the way that people behaved or the way that they naturally felt about things. So being a teenage girl and having someone teach you that your sexuality is something you should be ashamed of or your sexual urges are something that's sinful or that women have a particular place, usually in a subservient role, all felt fundamentally wrong. And I realized very much that the church often equates what's natural or what's very much inherent in the way that we behave as something that's satanic.

0:05:05 Jex: Inquiry, challenging systems of power, authority, are things that are deemed bad or under Satan's influence. So I realized slowly that I identified much stronger with the satanic figure more than kind of this unnatural form of spiritualism that the church promotes. So, and I think that that's very much similar to the Satanic Temple's model. They believe in a form of satanism that very much comes from the literary and cultural tradition, as Satan is often referenced in romantic texts as being a liberator of mankind or, you know, a light bringer or a figure of the Enlightenment. And all of that kind of does stem back to the original mythology of Satan as someone that offered mankind an opportunity to kind of free themselves from the bondage of God.

0:05:58 Thomas: Right. It's sort of like, it sounds sort of Like Christianity says, okay, all the things that are fun and interesting, that's all Satan. And then you're like, oh, okay. Well, I'll go do that.

0:06:08 Jex: Right. And it's, you know, it's not just what's fun. I mean, of course, it is. It's not only what's fun and interesting, but it's also just what is natural. I mean, we all have, you know, lustful feelings or envious feelings or passionate feelings or hateful feelings. And those things are okay. You know, there's certainly more productive ways of expressing some of those things, but trying to say that they're evil or a symbol that we are bad is a huge form of control. And it's been a very effective form of controlling people. People?

0:06:13 Thomas: Yeah, Yeah, yeah.

0:06:41 Thomas: So I have to ask then, though, for you, and I guess maybe your impression of others, is this a literal belief or is it a, you know, like, is it now we just don't want to be involved in Christianity?

0:06:53 Jex: We do not believe in a literal Satan. So we have all the defining features of a religion. We are non-theistic religious organizations. So, we have a community, a shared set of beliefs, an aesthetic, a ritual practice, but we do Not have a supernatural or God element. And there's other religions that are like that. We're not unique in that way, in particular. But you think about culturally and the reality of how Satanism has been expressed throughout history, it's people who have been feminists or scientists or anybody who's challenged the church in any way have suffered under the yoke of Satanism. And that's a very real tradition. You can look at two witch trials in Europe and, of course, obviously in the U.S. as as well. That's a tangible, real history of Satanism that we recognize and very much see as part of our lineage.

0:07:12 Thomas: Okay.

0:07:52 Thomas: So it's safe to say that for the most part, then it's people who don't buy into the beliefs of Christianity. I wasn't, I honestly just wasn't sure. Like, I feel like there's a lot of straw men portrayals or references to Satanists, you know, that's like actual literal people worshiping a devil. And it's like, it sounds like that's nowhere where you are.

0:08:15 Jex: Right. Yeah. I mean, there's certainly people who would consider themselves to be theistic Satanists who believe in a supernatural devil. But if you think about it, if you being someone who might consider themselves free thinking or godless, that's a designation that people in your community, people who are in elected office, consider to be satanic. So whether or not you might personally identify, you are certainly given that designation by people in positions of power. And what we've done is decided to take that term and use it as a form of empowerment rather than allow people to use it against us.

0:08:35 Thomas: Right.

0:08:50 Thomas: Right. I like it. So what were some of the things, I know the Satanic Temple has a lot of different causes and campaigns. Take us through some of the history of campaigns you've been involved with.

0:09:02 Jex: So the first campaign that I was personally involved with, by the time that we did, that they did the pink mass. So that was a ceremony on the former leader of the Westboro Baptist Church's parents' graves when it was having a homosexual makeout session ritual on their graves to turn them gay in the afterlife. And that was, you know, it was not an acknowledgement to their protests at funerals that they still do. And also, of course, their attack on same-sex relationships. And then after that, we did the Black Mass at Harvard, which was a huge scene because we had permission to have basically a reenactment of historical texts about what a Black Mass looks like, and then a conversation supported by Harvard faculty about free speech.

0:09:53 Jex: And the Catholic diocese basically rebelled and threatened to, you know, withdraw support from the school. So the president of Harvard said they were very ashamed. And essentially, we were blacklisted from every venue in Cambridge, and the school backed out as well. And we ended up going to the streets and performing a version of it at a Chinese food restaurant nearby, which I'm glad we did. It was packed. It was packed full of people. And then,

0:10:26 Thomas: Before we move on from that one, what exactly is a black mass? That some sort of official thing that it has to be?

0:10:33 Jex: Well, so there's different ideas of what it is. It really wasn't practiced. That's kind of a misconception ever. But it's the idea of kind of reversing the Catholic mass and making somewhat of a mockery of that tradition by by inverting the symbols and traditions that are involved with traditional mass. And it was written about in the Enlightenment period in Europe and in France. There's some texts, but mostly they were written about by people who said that Satanists were supposedly practicing them to stir up fear from a pretty God-fearing population of people. But that's kind of the point is, for us at least, was to talk about what that means and what the hysteria that surrounded the mythology of the Black Mass means. And then it turns out that it still has so much relevance today.

0:11:21 Thomas: Interesting. It sounds like Catholics were not fans. Was this anything that led to a legal challenge, or was this one of those that you just did and kind of moved on?

0:11:32 Jex: Yeah, we moved on because I think we our point in the press and we did a lot of interviews and tried to have a lot of conversations about the implications of what happened because hundreds of Catholics proceeded to walk through the streets of Cambridge and protest, but we weren't really permitted or weren't safely permitted to have our similar expression of religious belief. And that remains a problem today. I think that was a very difficult action because of how complicated it became. We, of course, we had the Baphomet Monument, which is probably what we're most well known for. And, that's when we wanted to offer an alternative or comparable display to be placed at the Oklahoma State Capitol where there was a privately funded Ten Commandments monument. Our position, and it turns out the court's position, is also that it's illegal for the state to promote a religious message such as the Ten Commandements. But we've crowdfunded and built satanic monuments to Baphomet that we offered to be placed on the state property next to the Ten Commandments monument.

0:12:07 Thomas: Interesting, Yeah, I love it so much because it really is incredible that a lot lot of Christians in this country don't realize they don't want religious freedom, they want Christianity imposed on others. And it's like, I just love some of these actions you guys have taken because it's, like, oh, okay, well, if it's about religious freedom then here, let's do this too. And they're, like, no, no, hold on, hold on.

0:13:12 Jex: Yeah, I mean, the Christian right often says that they celebrate religious freedom, but it's just a code for Christian privilege. And it's very dangerous if we permit that to continue, because, of course, we can talk about how it offends people like the Satanists, but It's also offensive to people of any other minority faith. Faith. Certainly, it affects people of Jewish background or Muslim background, but also it affects the question of whether or not somebody who has a belief in the supernatural, their beliefs deserve more protection and value under the law than somebody who doesn't hold a supernatural belief. So, you for example, your opinion or your sincerely deeply felt philosophy about about what you do with your body, for example, why does that value less and matter less in the eyes of the law than somebody who believes that rose from the dead and will come again and we'll all go to heaven or hell? And that's really an important question, I think, for us to be asking because it has huge implications.

0:13:20 Thomas: Right, right, absolutely.

0:14:21 Thomas: And I think that's what the group does so brilliantly and it really is just an accident. You know, it is kind of like like they say, you know, one person talking to Jesus is a nut, you know, a bunch of people doing it. Oh, that's a religion or that kind of thing, you know, where it's like pointing out that it's just because of these group dynamics and these numbers of people that are lending more legitimacy to one set of supernatural claims.

0:14:48 Jex: Right. And obviously money and power are tied to that. I mean, what people do often ask, you know, are our beliefs legitimate or, you know, the Satanic Temple is not a real religion, but, you know, Scientology is recognized as a real religion and they get tax-exempt status. And so I think we certainly have more of a historical and cultural claim to legitimate religious belief than Scientologists do and no one seems to question them, you now.

0:14:52 Thomas: Right, right. Yeah.

0:15:15 Thomas: No kidding. Absolutely. You know, that was on my list of things to ask you was oftentimes times legally, it's phrased as a sincerely held religious belief. I mean, do you have any additional thoughts on that? If someone asks you, well, okay, is this your sincerely held religious belief though? I mean what are you going to tell them?

0:15:36 Jex: Well, I mean, the answer is yes, because who gets to define what religion means and who gets to define What Sincerely Held means, and it's up to the individuals for us to say that that's true. And we're fortunate that the courts have, although they, you know, have faltered a couple times, but they do not want to make a decision about what religion is valid or not valid and whose beliefs are valid or non-valid. So it's really kind of, it comes to making legal claims, uh, about finding the right uh laws and claims to use in support of that, but typically we're not going to get challenged on whether or not our beliefs are sincere, and that's important because culturally certainly people will challenge that, but legally, and because we have a strong constitution, that that's something that we can rely on to hopefully promote equality.

0:15:58 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, Yeah. It's unfortunate. It seems like, and this isn't the legal show, so maybe I shouldn't go too much into opining about, but I just don't know why we need something like a law that evaluates how sincerely someone's holding a belief. It seems like what's important is that we're all following laws and not infringing on other people's rights, even if we sincerely believe it. It doesn't matter how sincerely I believe that I can murder somebody. I could be absolutely sincere, but we recognize that it's it's like, well, that's not cool, you know?

0:17:00 Jex: Right, exactly. And you see that becoming a real hot topic when it comes to people's civil rights and how far someone's religious belief supersede that because of kind of the order that it's recognized under the law in terms of when civil rights became protected and recognized and religious liberty, which has been foundational. So it gets to be really tricky. And I think we've seen how embarrassing and shameful it is when we do value religious belief over certain civil liberties because you saw that with the Jim Crow laws and lots of those other issues that came up with gay marriage. Fortunately, we've been writing those things, but we have to continue to to correct.

0:17:06 Thomas: Right.

0:17:45 Thomas: And I'm thinking of the Masterpiece Cake Shop. I'm not sure if that's something you've kept an eye on, but yeah, it just, it strikes me as so ridiculous. It's like I don't, look, if you want to do business, if you wanna be a place of business, you have to serve everybody equally. That's not an infringement on your rights.

0:17:49 Jex: Right. Yeah.

0:18:02 Jex: Yeah, I mean, there's a law that's in law. There's a equal accommodation law. It's equal accommodation laws. So they they have to equally accommodate people in the public if they are to be a public business. If they want to be a private business, they can do things a little differently. But if they're going to be a public business open to anyone, they have to equally accommodate people regardless of their personally held beliefs. And if that's something they can't do, then they can open up a private Christian bake shop and discriminate against whoever they want. Actually, that was one of the actions that we did in Detroit here is that when there was questions about whether or not those things could happen, we released a series of signs that people could put in their windows if they They wanted to discriminate people based on their sincerely held beliefs. And they could fill out a form that says, you know, no queer people allowed in the shop. So then we could all at least know where we could or shouldn't be supporting. Didn't take off, but I still think the point is valid.

0:18:04 Thomas: Yeah. And it should be a law. Yeah, mm-hmm.

0:18:56 Thomas: Yeah... Well, are there other campaigns you want to talk about? I was going to ask you about, we haven't touched on abortion yet. And I know that's definitely a big issue where Christians like to use their sincerely held religious beliefs. But is there anything else we should touch on first?

0:19:14 Jex: You know, we've tried a lot of different things. But I think it all fundamentally fundamentally does come down to the same kinds of issues that we are talking about with the abortion case. I mean, we have attended rallies in support of religious liberty just to show people that, you know, that applies equally to everyone. And in Michigan, we had a display or a holiday display we called Snake-tivity that we've now been doing for the last four years. And, you know, often people think that that's because we just simply are upset that there's a nativity on state property, which is kind of, I don't know, low hanging fruit, in my opinion, because it's I think it's not one of the ones that are more offensive to people.

0:20:00 Jex: But was an expression of the same time where they're trying to pass these Religious Freedom and Restoration Act laws on the state level where they do grant exclusive rights and privileges to religious people. And so to kind of demonstrate to the legislature how that would actually play out, we thought, well, let's do a religious display so we can really show them how religious liberty works. So that was a big one for us, too. But but yeah.

0:20:26 Thomas: Do you guys deliver invocations or anything? I know there's a lot of people who do. I know it's another area where it's like there will be a Christian prayer before some sort of state or local Congress. You know, is that something you guys have have tried to infiltrate as well?

0:20:39 Jex: Yeah. So there was, we've done it a couple of times in different states. In Arizona, there was a filmed city council meeting, actually. And it was pure chaos. I mean, the city council members just turned on each other while they were debating. Debating, um, I think it's, some, I mean, probably look it up, or it might be on the Satanic Temple website, but it's it's really wild to see the kind of, um, the difficulty that the council members have because they can't legally and say that, you know, Christian prayers, uh, permitted before a meeting and Satanic prayer isn't. That's just not allowed.

0:21:14 Jex: So, um, it was really interesting to see that played played out. In Michigan, we did the first state-sanctioned Satanic ceremony at the Capitol Steps following a live nativity reenactment sponsored by Ted Cruz's campaign. So yeah, that's another example where we kind of are going tit for tat.

0:21:14 Thomas: I'm A fan of anything that, uh, tries to make fun of Ted Cruz or to to take him on, um, that's so funny, and and so they really just could not even handle these city council members, just can't even deal with the fact that there's a satanic invocation

0:21:40 Jex: Yeah.

0:21:50 Jex: No, they were in tears. I mean, they were în tears that they might have to actually not have Christian prayer if they they wanted to forbid satanic prayer. I mean, it was, it's pretty remarkable. And it's scary because those people do make decisions, you know, that impact people's lives. And it's frightening that they are incapable of understanding the way that our equal rights exist here.

0:21:51 Thomas: Right Yeah it's really mind-blowing to me, like, why, why aren't they able to just say, oh, okay, well, let's just not do prayer. You know, I've seen some, you know, through the years, different instances of this, I have seen justifications where it's like, well, we need to set a kind of a solemn tone in order to whatever. It's like, why don't you just do the job that you're voted in to do? Do you really need a little seance, a little ritual, whatever it is, a prayer to do your job? Like, just do it.

0:22:42 Jex: Well, especially when that prayer is often asking God for guidance in making decisions, You know, and we've seen how that goes.

0:22:46 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. That's a little, that biases people a little bit.

0:22:51 Jex: Right. Absolutely. It should be illegal. It should be legal. There's no question about that, I think. But as long as it's not illegal or if it's still continuing, then it's important that we at least have a diversity of voices represented in those scenarios rather than one.

0:23:06 Thomas: Right. I think they're counting on the, well, you know, everybody can do it, and then they're just counting on it always being Christian for the most part. So, you

0:23:14 Jex: Right, and that falls into the, there's also, you know, Christian after-school programs for kids that have been happening. It's really an indoctrination program that's quite harmful. So that's another example of the Satanic Temple offered an after-school Satan program at the same school so that at least kids would have an opportunity to learn about different viewpoints rather than kind of this one single oppressive viewpoint that's promoted and well-funded in our school systems.

0:23:40 Thomas: Know, I just realized this is a basic, and sorry if it's a stupid question, but have you gotten to the point where you have an actual temple, or is this just in the name?

0:23:49 Jex: We do. No, we do. Our headquarters are in Salem, Massachusetts, and people can see the Baphomet Monument that's there and visit us, And there's lectures and meetings held there quite frequently.

0:23:49 Thomas: Oh, cool. Nice. Nice.

0:24:03 Thomas: Now who or what is Baphomet exactly?

0:24:06 Jex: The Baphomet is a cult figure that has both masculine and feminine feature and is half human and half beast. And can trace it back to the Templars or a little bit before that. It's really kind of comes from the imagination of occult figures from, you like classical period that predates Christianity. But it has a more recent history, but it's been associated with the occult often. And it's really the ideas as above, so below is kind of the connective tissue to the Baphomet figure. But it's really that we both have a good, you know, like a light side and a dark side and an animalistic side and kind of noble side. And all of those things are qualities that make up who we are as humans. And I think that's a really powerful message. And that's, but it's something that people kind of fear because it has these kind of bestial qualities that people associate with, you Know, the occult.

0:24:33 Thomas: Oh, right. Yeah. Well, which is funny because if you, you know, if you've actually read the Bible, there's all kinds of weird, you know, like, oh, half, part eagle, part lion, part, like they just think that's really cool. And then it's not, in the Bible it's not an evil thing, it's like a, you know, a holy thing. Like it's this incredible miracle that God sends this image of this, all kinds of different animals and then, you You know, so it actually, if they knew their Bible, I don't know if it would be that scary to them. But anyway, so interesting.

0:25:20 Jex: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's very real.

0:25:39 Thomas: So I am looking at this Washington Post write-up that was about you, and it says, Why the Satanic Temple Spokeswoman is Blogging Her Abortion. And I know, not the cheeriest subject to transition right into, but I'm very curious about this. So can you talk about this?

0:25:57 Jex: Absolutely. I love talking about abortion. But that's a real thing. I think we should talk about it a lot more, and it doesn't have to be something that's so depressing or sad to talk about. But I pregnant and I had an abortion, and I decided to talk about it every step of the way. Um, this is, there's been a movement of people doing that called Shout Your Abortion, but it's often women talking about their experience long after it happened.

And, um, know, many of the laws that we have in place that are supposed to protect vulnerable women going through an abortion process actually causes a great deal of harm to them, and is not an ethical, uh, choice. It's not even effective at all in reducing unwanted pregnancy or the abortion rates. Just really, um, causes a lot, lot of harm and turmoil for women.

So I thought one way of kind of combating that issue is to just talk about it from a real personal perspective, so that people understand what it feels like to be a woman waiting for an abortion, because you can't usually just go and get one. There's a long waiting list, often, because there's

0:27:05 Thomas: Yeah.

0:27:05 Jex: Very little clinics available to people in many states. And, and there's also a waiting period. There's a waiting period in Michigan. Not all states, but many states have waiting periods that are 24 up to 72 hours, imposed by law. And, you know, there's a lot of stigma attached to being pregnant and not being able to speak about that and how it physically makes you feel. And so I just wrote about it from that perspective, and took the debate out of it, and took kind of the moral argument away, way and just try to, to come at it from an approach of just being a human.

0:27:39 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, so just kind of describing it maybe more like any other medical thing that might happen, you're saying, rather than, yeah,

0:27:45 Jex: Well, yeah. Well also talking about kind of the stigma that's attached to it. So, um, when I was, you know, I, I think I was only about 10 weeks along, but I was sick. So I was going through the kind of experience that women have when they are pregnant. But, unlike other women who could be able to talk to people about the fact that they're expecting something that I had to hide, you You know, I had to lie to people at work when I was sick that I, you know, they thought I was out drinking or something like that. But really it was because I was pregnant and I couldn't talk about that. And it's a, know, there's like a real sense of shame or outsider-ness that's part of that experience. And and also just having to kind of go through this really humiliating experience of having someone at a clinic tell you that state says that life begins at conception and you're you're essentially a murderer and how that feels and what that's like to kind kind of go through.

0:28:05 Thomas: Right.

0:28:36 Thomas: We'll talk about that a little bit because, I mean, yeah the state says that, it's not really what the law says, right, but they're able to still, right?

0:28:43 Jex: Is the law, actually, in many states. So the state has, almost in all states, the Health and Human Services Department writes a handbook that is the informed consent handbook, that women must receive before they have an abortion. And this is not usually a handbook written by, know, doctors. It's written, it's maybe written by the influence of doctors, but it's a state document and it includes propaganda. Essentially, it's a propaganda document. So it goes over kind of the development of the fetus and what that's like, then also really has a huge stressor on the risks and dangers associated with abortion. And often those facts are inaccurate or misleading.

There's very little to do with the risk associated with childbirth, which are monumental compared to the risk associate with having an abortion. And it also promotes the state belief that life begins at conception. And in Missouri, for example, it also says that terminating unborn baby means that you're terminating the life of a unique living human being, which is essentially murder. And you have to receive a booklet that says that your doctor at the clinic has to tell you it, and then you have sign a legal document before you're able to go through with your procedure saying that you've heard that information.

0:29:11 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:30:02 Thomas: It's just so infuriating. And I it's interesting, it's like they They found this little cheat where they're, even though Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land for now until Trump and Gorsuch have their way or something, but even though that's still the lot of the land, they're able to make it so like legally the opinion of the state can be, well, life begins at conception and they have to, they can make it so that they have you have to read all this like crap that says that essentially. So, okay.

0:30:05 Jex: Yeah.

0:30:35 Jex: Right. So, yeah. So Roe v. Wade is lost. Legally, you can have abortions, but the state is also legally allowed to have a position and an interest in protecting unborn life, as they call it. So they can put a lot of different laws in place to promote that belief so long as you're still legally able to obtain an abortion.

0:30:56 Thomas: Right.

0:30:56 Jex: So They basically make it somewhat impossible, though, and that's kind of where there's been challenges to what they call the trap laws, which is essentially laws that are forcing clinics to shut down the necessary regulations. And the waiting periods laws and the mandated ultrasounds are all there and intended to get women to their mind about abortion. But, you know, studies show that that doesn't happen at all. In fact, women are still going to do what they've decided to do, but it makes their experience so much more difficult. And it's really inhumane and unethical and it's not effective. And I think that's what's so problematic about this is that not only is it imposition of a religious belief in a state promoted religious belief at that, but it doesn't make any sense.

0:30:56 Thomas: Okay.

0:31:43 Jex: And we can all agree that potentially we would all like to reduce unwanted pregnancy, and I think that that's something that everybody can agree with. And there are effective ways of doing that, such as increasing funding and improving access to sex education and contraception care, and that is not in line with the church's doctrine, which is why we aren't actually being effective and we're just hurting women who are vulnerable in these positions instead. Said.

0:32:09 Thomas: Yeah. So, gosh, it's so frustrating. So Michigan, it sounds like was not an easy time, but maybe not as bad as some of these other states where, I mean, I've heard from people where it's like effectively, it is virtually impossible to get an abortion in some states, which how is that allowed to be when, again, Roe v. Wade is the law of the land. It's just, it's mind blowing. It's very

0:32:19 Jex: Correct. Right. And, and I mean, and one thing that's really sad about it is it can be, there's, there's legitimate legal challenges, but, um, for a woman to have the resources to, to take those up in court, you know, and to be able to afford legal counsel and, um. It makes it very difficult. So even when there's a clear violation, um it's, it's just very difficult to take it to court and to have justice served in that case.

0:32:43 Thomas: Not to mention driving back and forth miles and miles when it's the only place available. And then you mentioned cool down periods, so you're going to have to go to multiple appointments in order to get it done. So what's where does Michigan rank on that? Do you have any idea? I mean, I'm in California, So it's a bit of a, it's a bit different for me over here. Um, but yeah,

0:33:10 Jex: Yeah. Yeah, Michigan has a 24-hour waiting period, which is fairly common. There's certainly other states that don't have any waiting period and that is ideal, but it's not as bad as Missouri, for example, that has 72-hour waiting period. And up until very recently, they only had one clinic, the entire states. Um, it also is very difficult in Texas where, uh, if you're in Southwest Texas or there's not a clinic for, um, hundreds and hundreds of miles and they also have a waiting period. So that means that you have to, um. You know, take time off of work, arrange And pay for a hotel. 60% of women are mothers. So that mean you often have to also arrange for childcare or bring your young children with you. Um, so already mothers

0:33:54 Thomas: 60% of women seeking an abortion or mothers is that. Okay. Gotcha. Sorry, actually to tie out the, uh, the blogging your abortion part, I meant to ask what were, uh, were there any notable reactions to that? How did that go over? And, uh. Could you tell us about the experience in the, and if you've got any major pushback?

0:34:08 Jex: Yeah Uh, well, experience was really intense for me because, um, it's kind of like, uh, if you, if the flu, you you watch TV or you might lay around and watch movies and try to kind of forget about the fact that you feel awful. And I, you know, actively was writing very much about how I was feeling. So I was very much in the the moment, experiencing. Experiencing at the fullest.

0:34:43 Jex: And that included also receiving a lot of hate mail, but also a lot of support. And I provided an opportunity for people to make comments on the posts that I was making. And women were coming out for the first time talking about their experiences. I talked to several young women that were awaiting their first abortion and they were afraid. And some of the women on this blog kind of stepped up and started doing email correspondences to support. I mean, I was talking to girls that were having an abortion because there was 17 living at home in a traditional Catholic home and they couldn't tell a single soul and they were terrified.

And it's and that's just a couple experiences that I had. And I feel I was feeling very empowered by it and so lucky. But there's thousands of people and thousands of women across the U.S. that go through this, you know, every day. And it's it's just heartbreaking have kind of really understood the depth and frequency of the tragic impact of these laws. And I think the abortion blog really helped me to understand that, but also really empowered me to keep talking about it.

0:34:32 Thomas: Yeah yeah yeah So on to Missouri then, that's that's what's been in the news, of course. Can you talk about that and is that something you've been directly involved in?

0:36:00 Jex: Yeah, I was, I helped draft the first exemption form that we put out on the Internet for women to use. And that was basically a form that anybody who's involved with the Satanic Temple can bring to their doctor or clinic that says they would like to be exempted from the waiting period and from receiving the state-mandated informed consent material on the basis of their religious beliefs.

0:36:23 Jex: Now, we expected that that would probably not work because it puts clinics in a position where they have to then disobey the law.

0:36:31 Thomas: Okay, so there's no like provision in the law that

0:36:33 Jex: No. No. And That's what this this case is actually about, with us trying to make sure that accommodation can be in place so that women can effectively use the the exemption forms. So we, when we did have a woman, um, who we have called Mary Doe, for, you interest of protecting, protecting her privacy, used that in Missouri, it was, the clinic didn't accept it. And then the next day we, or actually later that day, we sued the state and the attorney general and said that they were forcing Mary to have an abortion against the wishes and beliefs of her sincerely held religious belief system as a Satanist.

0:36:34 Thomas: Oh, okay yeah

0:37:14 Jex: So it's two and a half years now.

0:37:14 Thomas: I I don't know why that wouldn't work. Oh, two and a half years. Oh, okay, yes. So this is a while in the making, what so this, I, I assume this means it's it's gone through multiple kind of appeals and all that.

0:37:18 Jex: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the state is basically trying to say that we don't have standing to make a constitutional claim. So we've said that the Missouri Freedom and Restoration, Religious Freedom and Restauration Act applies to to our case. And also, we've made a First Amendment claim, the Establishment Clause, saying that Missouri is essentially attempting to favor and establish a religious belief. And so the only way that the state can get out of that is saying that we don't actually have a legitimate claim, that we are just merely disagreeing with the state's beliefs rather than being deeply offended or having to act or not act in a way that violates our beliefs. So we have just had our case heard at the Missouri Supreme Court, and hopefully they will decide that we do have clear standing, and then it will get kicked down to the lower court where we can actually go to court and argue on the merits of our case.

0:38:05 Thomas: Huh. Oh, right. Okay. So it's like you have to get through this phase and then you're back down to, to, uh, to evaluate it. So I thought when you said standing, I thought they were going to say like, oh, because the pregnancy is over, whatever it is. It wasn't anything like that.

0:38:28 Jex: Right. That was part of it, too. That was actually part of it.

0:38:34 Thomas: Okay, so you had to clear that

0:38:36 Jex: Yeah.

0:38:36 Thomas: Hurdle first. Yeah.

0:38:37 Jex: Yeah, you have to demonstrate that you have harm. You've been harmed by the law or you will have future harm. And it's such a ridiculous claim to make because, of course, you can't wait a year to have this go through court before you can get an abortion. You have to have it. And we're seeing that the harm's already been done, that Mary has already been very much harmed by the state's laws. Not only was it obviously like a huge, but it also imposed a lot of shame and guilt upon her that she carries with her because of the laws that the state mandates.

0:38:45 Thomas: Yeah.

0:39:10 Thomas: Yeah, plus, I mean, everybody else who's going to have to go through it, it seems pretty clear that, but it sounds like you cleared that first hurdle at least.

0:39:14 Jex: Exactly. We're hoping. Yeah. I mean, the appeals court says that they believe that we have a valid constitutional claim. And that's why they kicked it up to the Supreme Court, because that's kind of where they their reign is most as a Supreme Court rather than the appeals Court. So I'm hopeful. I do think if do not support our claim, I think that will be a pretty obvious form of discrimination because of the way that Hobby Lobby was treated by the Supreme Court. And if a corporation can claim that birth control is – causes an abortion, which it doesn't, but if they say that their beliefs say that they do and therefore they don't have to provide birth control, then certainly a woman like Mary can say that her deeply held beliefs have been deeply offended and violated by these laws. And I think there's much more standing and legitimacy to that claim. I

0:39:19 Thomas: Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah, No kidding. You would hope. God, that is just so annoying. But have you heard, I'm curious, have you heard of instances of the, now kind of the waiver that you guys wrote up to say that you should not have to be subject to this because of your beliefs? Have you heard of distances of that working? I mean, has it just, just have, have medical facilities made that decision to not mess with it and just kind of go, oh, okay.

0:40:35 Jex: Mean, not in our case, but it has I mean there's people have been exempted from vaccinations on the basis of their religious belief. And I think that's incredibly comparable. And it's it's interesting because certainly there's a good argument to be made that there's greater harm for society in general by not being vaccinated.

0:40:52 Thomas: Yeah. I was going to say, hold on, hold up. I don't want people to

0:40:55 Jex: Vaccinated.

0:40:55 Thomas: Be, I don'T want people to be getting exempt from their vaccinations for this reason, but yeah. Or at least they, they shouldn't be able to bring their kids to a public school or something. But anyway, I guess that's a separate issue, but so when you drew up the, cause you mentioned you wrote up that kind of waiver thing. You hadn't heard of any instances of it going over well, I take it.

0:40:56 Jex: Yeah, right. Yeah.

0:41:17 Jex: Well, no one had used a religious waiver to challenge abortion law in the past. We're the first ones to do that, so there isn't really a model except using other forms of religious exemption that have been used in other cases in the past as kind of a model.

0:41:23 Thomas: Right.

0:41:35 Thomas: Right, I see what you're saying. Hope that is successful. So what are we waiting on right now in terms of this decision?

0:41:43 Jex: Well we're just waiting to hear back from the Missouri Supreme Court and they don't really give us a time frame for when that's going to happen. It could be a month from now, it could be eight months from now. It's just, we don't know. So we're waiting to hear back.

0:41:55 Thomas: Okay, so that's the next step is just kind of waiting and then reevaluating from there. So I imagine then that a big part of the Satanic Temple and what you do must be a legal team, right? Is that something that's a focus of your organization?

0:42:00 Jex: Yeah.

0:42:12 Jex: I wish I could say yes. We've had legal help for certain things in the past, certain challenges and support from some organizations. But for the case in Missouri, for example, we do not have any pro bono support. So all of the, you know, we have a lot of merchandise on our website. We take donations and that's what we use to support these legal challenges that we have. And it is a challenge. It's certainly a challenge, but we are very fortunate that we Have a lot of generous and generous members that really help keep these things going.

0:42:49 Thomas: Yeah, definitely. Well, I mean, it's a great cause, especially this Missouri case. I mean that sounds like something that, and again, it is not just going to benefit Satanists, it's going to benefit anybody who doesn't want to have Christian beliefs dictated to them and have their, you know, have to wait and go through a bunch of bullshit to get an abortion. It seems like that should, that should be a pretty wide appeal.

0:43:14 Jex: Yes, I agree. And I think, you know, even if we're, we're not successful, I think the fact that we are demonstrating the ways that radical religious beliefs can be used to challenge the law will hopefully inspire others to take that up in other places in the future. I have some of my own projects that are going to be coming out in the next year. I filmed a 24-hour movie of a woman waiting in a hotel room with the intention to have it displayed in public spaces and in states where there are waiting periods. And the idea is to kind of show people and force people to contend with the very real lived experience of women who are forced to wait when seeking abortion treatment. And hopefully that will be tied also with some proposed legislation and activist opportunities to hopefully reverse the laws that mandate waiting periods. And I hope people will pay attention to that,

0:43:31 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, so Yeah

0:44:14 Jex: And keep, you know, following the news for when that comes out.

0:44:15 Thomas: Yeah, Absolutely. Well, I think you're just doing such a cool thing. I really do. And also, where can we send people if they want to support you, check out your work, other things like that?

0:44:29 Jex: You can go to jexblackmore.com and the satanictemple.com as well. Of

0:44:35 Thomas: That's great. Well, thank you so much for explaining the basics and taking us through some of what you're doing. It's been a real pleasure.

0:44:41 Jex: Course, I'm always happy to talk about it.

0:45:03 Thomas: Alright, that is it for this show, make sure You might remember that I vague-booked last week about an announcement, well, it will be Thursday's episode, and I'm going to make sure that both members at SeriousPod.com slash support and patrons at Patreon.com, slash Serious Pod, get early access to Thursday's episode. It's something I'm really excited about. I hope you will be excited about it too. I can't wait. And with that said, I mean, if you're a member, then You'll hear from me very soon, if not, you'll hear from me Thursday, so I'll see you then either way.