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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Fired Satanist Says He Faced Retaliation

An avowed Satanist who lost his job with a Pennsylvania school district claims in a federal complaint that he faced retaliation.

PHILADELPHIA (CN) – An avowed Satanist who lost his job with a Pennsylvania school district claims in a federal complaint that he faced retaliation.

Kevin Richard says he had been working for Coatesville schools for six months as a secretary when he learned in July 2016 that he was being reassigned to the role of registration specialist.

The new gig did not last long. Come Aug. 23, Richard allegedly lodged a religious objection because he had been asked to “reschedule a scheduled parent interview for the purpose of prioritizing another individual on the basis of nepotism.”

Richard says nepotism is a no-no in Satanism, which teaches him “to treat all individuals equally.”

Coatesville schools fired Richard the same day he complained, telling him that the woman he had been replacing as reistration specialist was no longer taking medical leave.

Calling this a clear pretext, Richard says “this was not the woman, Julia, whose last scheduled day was in the end of August, and whom Richard was told he was replacing.”

Richard seeks punitive damages for religious discrimination and retaliation.

He is represented by Larry Weisberg of the Harrisburg firm McCarthy Weisberg Cummings. Neither he nor the Coatesville Area School District’s legal department returned a call requesting comment.

Writings by Anton LaVey, who founded the Church of Satan, indicate that the religion may not be a stickler on nepotism.

“Stratification - The point on which all the others ultimately rest,” he wrote in Pentagonal Revisionism. “There can be no more myth of ‘equality’ for all - it only translates to ‘mediocrity’ and supports the weak at the expense of the strong.”

Peter Gilmore, the church’s administrator, wrote in The Satanic Scriptures that “the idealistic fools may scream that it is not fair, but then, we Satanists know that justice is relative and only lasts as long as one has the power to maintain it, either personally or through an alliance with those who do.”

Categories / Civil Rights, Education, Employment, Religion

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