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General Category => National/Breaking News => Topic started by: rangerrebew on April 28, 2019, 11:11:46 am

Title: Satanic Temple Wins IRS Recognition as an Official House of Worship
Post by: rangerrebew on April 28, 2019, 11:11:46 am

Satanic Temple Wins IRS Recognition as an Official House of Worship
By Lynnley Browning
April 26, 2019, 3:08 PM EDT


Many Americans regard paying taxes as a necessary evil. If they want to worship Satan, now the IRS has officially given them a tax-exempt place to do so.

The Internal Revenue Service has granted the same non-profit status given to churches, synagogues and mosques to The Satanic Temple, an organization in Salem, Massachusetts, that calls itself America’s first devil-worshiping church. It is now protected by federal laws governing churches that operate as charities.

In a statement this week announcing the status, the group called itself “a non-theistic religious organization dedicated to Satanic practice and the promotion of Satanic rights.” Based in the town that hosted the Salem Witch Trials in the 17th century, the statement added that the group “understands the Satanic figure as a symbol of man’s inherent nature, representative of the eternal rebel, enlightened inquiry and personal freedom rather than a supernatural deity or being.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-26/the-satanic-temple-gets-irs-nod-as-official-house-of-worship (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-26/the-satanic-temple-gets-irs-nod-as-official-house-of-worship)