Threatening voicemail leads school district to review controversial ‘After School Satan Club’

PHILADELPHIA (WFMZ) – District officials in Pennsylvania said they are reviewing an “After School Satan Club” after the controversial gathering was mentioned in a threatening voicemail left at the school.

The club is sponsored by the Satanic Temple, which said it gives students an alternative to Christian clubs.

The school district said the inclusion of the club doesn’t break any laws or district policies. However, some parents don’t believe it should be held at Saucon Valley Middle School.

Marjulee Colon said she originally thought the club was satire.

“I thought it was a joke,” she said.

June Everett, the After School Satan Club national campaign director, said the club is anything but a joke.

“We are ran by the Satanic Temple, and we are, the club is brought to you by your local, friendly, self-identified, non-theistic Satanists.”

Everett said the Satanic Temple doesn’t believe in the same Satan that Christians do.

“Although the Christian majority in this country does believe that Satan is a different symbol, to us, we do not view Satan as evil, we do not view Satan as trying to wreak havoc on communities and do terrible things,” she said. “We look to Satan as a positive symbol.”

However, Colon said she does not see satanic symbols and demons as positive. She said she already has her three children in a private school but is worried for parents who cannot make the same change.

“There are so many parents who cannot make the same choice that I’m making, and if we don’t speak up for this type of outlandish disregard to those of us who do have Judeo-Christian values, then when is it going to stop?” she said.

Colon said she is planning a prayer event outside the school on March 8, which is the same day the club is first supposed to meet.

More than 100 people have already signed up for the group on Facebook.

The superintendent originally said in a letter to parents that the district “has approved … the After School Satan Club.”

Everett said the community should learn to accept it.

“We don’t have to agree, we don’t have to believe the same, but we do have the same rights that everybody else does to these public spaces,” she said.

The school was closed on Wednesday after someone left a threatening voicemail at the school district office on Tuesday.

The superintendent said the threat referenced the After School Satan Club.

Due to the threat, and the disruption it caused, the superintendent said she is recommending a full review of the club’s use of school property.