{"id":27476,"date":"2026-04-21T09:25:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T09:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=27476"},"modified":"2026-04-21T09:25:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T09:25:19","slug":"school-extends-religious-accommodation-to-satanist-student","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=27476","title":{"rendered":"School Extends Religious Accommodation to Satanist Student"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Reading Time:<\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s note: While this particular exemption may seem harmless, it signals a dark future for Colorado and the rest of the nation. What other sorts of \u201cexemptions\u201d might the Satanic Temple ask for?<\/em>\n<\/p>\n

A Colorado school district has provided a tailored religious accommodation to a high school student who identifies as a satanist, exempting her from the school\u2019s digital hall pass system specifically for restroom access during class.<\/p>\n

Let the IFA community know how to pray for you.<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

A spokesman for the Elizabeth School District, located in Elbert County, says the district received a parental request to exempt the student at Elizabeth High School from\u00a0Minga, a widely adopted digital campus management platform used by schools across the United States to modernize and streamline student movement during the school day.\n<\/p>\n

Officials say the system was implemented at Elizabeth High School at the start of the second semester to assist in maintaining a safe, secure, and orderly learning environment for students and staff. \u201cThe system furthers this compelling interest by ensuring that students are safe and accounted for while outside the classroom,\u201d Elizabeth School District Public Information Officer Jeff Maher told The Christian Post on Friday.\n<\/p>\n

The Satanic Temple\u2019s Protect Children Project (PCP) supported the family when an initial request was denied after the student and her family argued that the bathroom access rules conflicted with her sincerely held religious beliefs as a member of The Satanic Temple (TST), citing a tenet of the satanic group which states, \u201cOne\u2019s body is inviolable, subject to one\u2019s own will alone.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

In a letter to the district, TST legal counsel Matt Kezhaya argued that the school\u2019s bathroom monitoring system burdened the student\u2019s religious exercise by placing school authority over her bodily autonomy, the group said in a public statement on its website.\n<\/p>\n

The letter also referenced the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s 2025 ruling in\u00a0Mahmoud v. Taylor<\/em>, which addressed parents\u2019 rights to opt children out of instruction conflicting with their religious beliefs.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cBy its very nature, the system requires [the student] to subordinate her bodily needs to institutional surveillance and control,\u201d Kezhaya wrote in the letter.\n<\/p>\n

The district ultimately granted the accommodation last Tuesday. The student now uses physical hall passes for restroom access instead of logging departures in Minga. She has two passes: one presented to the teacher upon leaving for the restroom and returned upon returning to class, and another carried while in the hallway. The student must still use Minga for all other out-of-class purposes, according to Maher.\n<\/p>\n

In his statement, Maher also cited the district\u2019s pledged commitment to both safety and parental rights. \u201cThe District believes that Minga is an important and necessary tool at the high school level. At the same time, the District is deeply committed to honoring parental rights and to the principle that families \u2014 not schools \u2014 are the ultimate arbiters of the values by which their children are raised.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

While Maher described the accommodation as one that \u201cboth respected the student\u2019s religion while preserving, to the greatest extent possible, the District\u2019s ability to fulfill its safety obligations to all students and staff,\u201d TST framed the outcome as a defense of religious liberty for its members.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cDefending student TST members from school policies that burden their religious beliefs is central to Protect Children Project\u2019s mission,\u201d the group stated. \u201cThe religious accommodation in Elizabeth, Colorado, demonstrates that commitment in action. These events also serve as a reminder that when the Supreme Court recognizes a religious protection, as it did in\u00a0Mahmoud v. Taylor<\/em>, public institutions cannot limit those protections to majority or politically favorable religious groups.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

While the notion of satanism as a constitutionally-protected religion may surprise some, TST\u00a0announced\u00a0in April 2019 that the IRS recognized the organization as a \u201cchurch\u201d and eligible for federal tax exemption under existing federal law.\n<\/p>\n

While TST initially lobbied against tax exemptions for churches and other religious institutions, the satanist group reversed its stance after the Trump administration signed a 2017\u00a0executive order\u00a0prohibiting any \u201cadverse action\u201d by the U.S. Treasury against religious institutions, including tax penalties and denying them tax-exempt status.\n<\/p>\n

How are you praying about the Satanic Temple? Share your thoughts and prayers below.<\/h4>\n

This article was originally published at The Christian Post. Photo Credit: Marc Nozell \u2013 https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/marcn\/33726363098\/, CC BY 2.0, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=145571098.<\/em>
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Reading Time: 3 minutes Editor\u2019s note: While this particular exemption may seem harmless, it signals a dark future for Colorado and the rest of the nation. What other sorts of \u201cexemptions\u201d might the Satanic Temple ask for? A Colorado school district has provided a tailored religious accommodation to a high school student who identifies as<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[7989,5738,91,9067,202,437],"class_list":{"0":"post-27476","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-prayer","8":"tag-accommodation","9":"tag-extends","10":"tag-religious","11":"tag-satanist","12":"tag-school","13":"tag-student"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}