A satanist Veteran Affairs staffer working at an undisclosed facility recently filed a complaint with a nonprofit civil rights group, claiming that his or her supervisor’s desk display, which reads “Not today, Satan, not today,” was a “grotesque Christian supremacist” sign, the New York Post reported. The sign was subsequently removed from the supervisor’s desk.
The self-described satanist staffer is an Air Force veteran who “subscribes to many non-theist teaching[s] (including Satanist).”
According to the worker, the undisclosed VA facility already had a hostile work environment when he or she was invited into the supervisor’s office. The staffer then observed the sign on the supervisor’s desk, which he or she claimed was placed “in such a way that it was physically directed at anyone sitting in the guest chair across from her desk.”
A letter sent by the staffer to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a civil rights group, explained that he or she sent a “passionate and deeply emotional email to my supervisor describing my feelings towards her and it.” The organization has agreed to take up the veteran’s case against the supervisor.
According to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation’s founder and president, attorney Michael Weinstein, the worker “was already having significant problems with his or her immediate supervisor, and this didn’t help any.”
According to Weinstein, some individuals are not aware of “the full nature of Satanism.” He told the Christian Post that the supervisor’s sign was a “noxious example of trying to express a particular religious view in a situation where it simply was not warranted.”
“It’s not sacrificing children at midnight with knives,” Weinstein stated. “Remember, in our perspective, we don’t look at it as to what is good and bad. We look at what is legal and what’s not legal.”
“We don’t look at whether Satan is bad, or Jesus is bad, or Vishnu is bad, or Buddha or Yahweh. We look at the time, place, and manner of an expression of a faith or non-faith tradition,” he added. “We’re a secular democratic republic. And that’s why we have a separation of church and state. It’s all time, place, and manner.”
The staffer explained in his or her letter that the sign was ultimately removed “with absolutely no resistance whatsoever from my hostile Christian supervisor.” The worker also noted that upper management is “now considering bringing in more cultural sensitivity awareness training, moving me to a new supervisor, and sending an apology email to my entire team.”
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