The Internal Revenue Service granted an "After School Satan Club" their tax exempt status. The approval process for the group's non-profit status took only 10 days, according to records obtained by Judicial Watch on Friday.
The satanic club was started by Reason Alliance, a Somerville, Mass. based non-profit organization that operates the Satanic Temple of Seattle. The director of Reason Alliance, Lilith X. Starr, founded the club at Point Defiance Elementary in Tacoma, Wash.
The Point Defiance Elementary Satanic club is run by adults that have been cleared by the "Executive Ministry" of the Seattle Satanic Temple. The group is focused on children from 5-12 and is intended to develop character, problem solving, critical reasoning, and other qualities. The club's logo is a pencil with devil horns.
The permission form to join the club asks for the childs' church and pastor, and once a child joins the club he or she will receive a Satanic membership card. Starr told Tacoma School District Superintendent Carla Santorno that the creation of the club was a "direct response" to Christian-based Good News Clubs that operate throughout Tacoma. Starr also said that the clubs are led by "caring Satanists."
The Satanic Temple uploaded a video advertising their club on their Youtube page.
Under Lois Lerner, former President Barack Obama's head of the IRS Exempt Organizations Unit, conservative groups were targeted and their tax exempt statuses were slowed. During a three year period under Lerner, the unit denied non-profit status to all but one conservative group.
According to a report from the Senate Finance Committee, Lerner's bias against conservative groups "unquestionably led to these delays." The report continued saying that the bias was even more evident when comparing the handling of other applicants to that of conservative applicants.