I can't find a link right now because I don't have time, but I remember a few years ago there was a case in the UK where a Coptic (Egyptian) Christian lady was working for an airline and was told by her employer that she was not allowed to wear a small cross on her person at work (I can't remember if it was a necklace or a pin, but either way it was unobtrusive and there was no safety reason for denying it). She brought suit against her employer for what she claimed was a violation of her right to publicly identify with her religion, and noted that the same airline allowed its female Muslim employees to wear their Islamic headcoverings on the job, so it's very unfair that they deny her the right to wear a small cross. She ended up losing her case when the court decided that wearing a cross could not be proven to be 'intrinsic' to being a Christian, so it was not interfering with her religion in the same way that telling a female Muslim employee that they could not wear their hijab at work would be.
To me, this kind of ruling is far more terrifying than some Satanist group talking about offering an after school program. The Satanist group, as in all cases when these groups have made the news lately (e.g., that statue in Detroit or wherever it was), is trying to make a point about freedom of religion and separation of church and state in America. The judges in the UK, however, are deciding what makes someone a practitioner of a particular religion. It makes me very glad that I live in America and not in the UK, and that we have a first amendment that says that congress cannot make laws concerning the practice of any faith in this country. It is none of the government's business should someone want to wear a cross, nor should it be any of their business should a parent want to enroll their kid in a Satanist after school program. Now, personally, I think the Satanist after school program is a terrible idea, as I am against the further mainstreaming of Satan, but I can still recognize the higher point of this announcement. And as an American I am kinda forced to say "Well, I don't like that you're doing that, but it's your right to do things I don't like so long as I am not compelled to do them, too, and so long as I am allowed to speak out against them for whatever reason(s) I have for thinking them to be bad." Because that's how we are to work as a society: Your neighbor may have wildly different views than you do, but so long as they are not physically harming or threatening you, and so long as you both equally have the right to argue against one another's ways of life, then there's really no reason not to let them do as they wish. Or, rather, there is a reason, but it is rooted in something other than the laws of the United States, which are purposely secular so as to avoid situations like the one I described in the UK where the government is ruling on who can be what or who can do what based on their religious beliefs.
