{"id":88900,"date":"2024-12-18T04:53:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-18T10:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=88900"},"modified":"2024-12-18T07:03:28","modified_gmt":"2024-12-18T13:03:28","slug":"the-satanic-choruses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=88900","title":{"rendered":"The Satanic Choruses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>SCENE: The rotunda at the Minnesota State Capitol.\u00a0\u00a0 A press conference is underway.\u00a0 Standing at the podium, in front of a &#8220;Satanic&#8221; display, are three members of the Twin Cities Church of Satan:<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Joshua Micah GUMPKE &#8211; a tall, morbidly obese 30-something man with thick, unkempt back hair,\u00a0 and a black neckbeard.\u00a0 His arms are covered with &#8220;sleeves&#8221; of occult-looking tattoos.\u00a0 He wears a black occult-themed T-shirt, stained with cheeto dust, fresh and otherwise.\u00a0 <\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Eva BACHMANN-DUMPF &#8211; a morbidly obese twenty-something woman with long straight blond hair.\u00a0 She is wearing a different black occult-themed t-shirt, and sports a small pentagram tattooed under her left ear.\u00a0 <\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Edmund POCKERT &#8211; A short, wiry man with a fringe of white hair snaking around the back of his head to meet his white beard.\u00a0 He wears a visibly worn suit.\u00a0 <\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>A smattering of reporters are gathered.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>POCKERT:\u00a0\u00a0 I&#8217;m Edmund Pockert, the legal counsel for the Twin Cities Church of Satan.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>GUMPKE AND BACHMANN-DUMPF: (<em>awkwardly, loudly<\/em>) Hail Satan!<\/p>\n<p>POCKERT:\u00a0 Mr. J-Talon666 and Ms. QueenOfTheDark will now answer questions.<\/p>\n<p>CHANNEL 11:\u00a0\u00a0 Mr. and Ms. What?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>POCKERT:\u00a0 Those are the names our representatives go by.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>CHANNEL 9:\u00a0 So what&#8217;s going on with this display?<\/p>\n<p>GUMPKE:\u00a0 This display is ack-shu-ally our way of striking a blow for religious pluralism.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The Governor has to ok this right? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/faITOpVPLQ\">pic.twitter.com\/faITOpVPLQ<\/a><\/p>&mdash; RevTimChristopher (@RevTChristopher) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RevTChristopher\/status\/1868432975400173780?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 15, 2024<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>BACHMANN-DUMPF:&nbsp; We love to notice the hypocrisy of Christians who melt down when other people exercise religious freedom.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>MPR NEWS:&nbsp; When you say &#8220;melt down&#8221;&#8230;?<\/p>\n<p>BACHMANN-DUMPF:&nbsp; Christians always have a cow and melt down when we assert our rights.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>POCKERT:&nbsp; Always.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>ALPHA NEWS:&nbsp; So, how do you respond to allegations that the &#8220;church of Satan&#8221; is less about religious freedom and more about getting a juvenile rise out of mainstream Christians. <\/p>\n<p>BACHMANN-DUMPF:&nbsp; Well, it is their own fault.&nbsp; They <em>always <\/em>have a cow and melt down and freak out go into emotional tailspin and get loud and crazy and deranged and lose their shi&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>GUMPKE:&nbsp; They are very predictable.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>CENTER OF THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT:&nbsp;&nbsp; So a local blogger and talk host left this satirical response to your display:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">They deleted the rough draft, but I had the screenshot first! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/rDkQUJ8tW5\">pic.twitter.com\/rDkQUJ8tW5<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Mitch &quot;The Wa\u0142\u0119sa Project&quot; Berg \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8\ud83c\uddf3\ud83c\uddf4\ud83c\uddea\ud83c\uddea\ud83c\udde6\ud83c\uddf7 (@mitchpberg) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mitchpberg\/status\/1868513788963758331?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 16, 2024<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>(<em>GUMPKE and BACHMANN-DUMPF<\/em> <em>stand, gobsmacked and confused, for a moment<\/em>. )<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>GUMPKE:&nbsp;&nbsp; (<em>finally breaking the silence<\/em>) Well, this is typical.&nbsp;&nbsp; A Christian freaking out&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>CHANNEL 4:&nbsp; This doesn&#8217;t appear to be &#8211; what was your term &#8211; &#8220;freaking out&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>ALPHA NEWS:&nbsp; Yeah, more like &#8220;satire&#8221; or &#8220;parody&#8221;, speaking to the notion that &#8220;Satanism&#8221; exist just to try to mock and ridicule regular Christians.<\/p>\n<p>BACHMANN-DUMPF:&nbsp; Is this even legal?&nbsp; Can they do that?<\/p>\n<p>POCKERT:&nbsp; (<em>nods silently<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p>GUMPKE:&nbsp;&nbsp; It&#8217;s our view that this just contributes to the climate of hate against Satanists&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>PIONEER PRESS:&nbsp; But it&#8217;s just mockery &#8211; not a whole lot different than this display, itself<\/p>\n<p>POCKERT:&nbsp; OK, this converence is <em>over<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>(<em>The three shuffle away from the podium<\/em>).<\/p>\n<p><em>And SCENE<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SCENE: The rotunda at the Minnesota State Capitol.\u00a0\u00a0 A press conference is underway.\u00a0 Standing at the podium, in front of a &#8220;Satanic&#8221; display, are three members of the Twin Cities Church of Satan: Joshua Micah GUMPKE &#8211; a tall, morbidly obese 30-something man with thick, unkempt back hair,\u00a0 and a black neckbeard.\u00a0 His arms are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,26,30,18],"tags":[236],"class_list":["post-88900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-war","category-faiths-and-their-followers","category-liberty","category-pc","tag-dramatization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=88900"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88912,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88900\/revisions\/88912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=88900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=88900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=88900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}