CHESAPEAKE, Va. — Early Monday morning, a group of people were praying the rosary outside of the B.M. Williams Primary School in Chesapeake.
UPDATE: After School Satan Club application withdrawn, Chesapeake superintendent says
The group met around 7 a.m. on Dec. 5 in response to a newly formed club called the After-School Satan Club.
News 3 previously reported on the club, which is organized by the Satanic Temple & Reason Alliance. Chesapeake Public Schools said in a statement that while it is not a school district-approved club, they “cannot discriminate based on beliefs among groups wishing to rent [their] facilities.”
The prayer group included residents of Chesapeake, Virginia Beach and Norfolk.
Group leader Steve Scheerbaum says he is part of a local group called "The Legion of Mary" and is a Chesapeake parent. His daughter is homeschooled but receives weekly speech therapy at the school. He says he and others in the prayer group are unhappy about the club's formation.
"This is highly offensive to Catholic sensibility," said Scheerbaum. "The only thing I could really compare it to, to somebody who wouldn't understand why we are outraged, it would be roughly the equivalent if like a bunch of black students were at the school and they have an after-school KKK club, a bunch of Jewish students were at the school, and they have an after-school Nazi club."
Satanic Temple co-founder Lucien Greaves released the following statement to News 3 in response to Scheerbaum's comments:
"What is to prevent any party from claiming that their ability to be as equally offended by the KKK as they are by any viewpoint that is oppositional to their own is an argument that favors silencing their opposition? Are we to adjudicate these situations merely by taking the side of whosoever should first point to their opposition and label them "KKK" regardless of what they actually believe or practice? Should we invite the public to enumerate their grievances against Catholics before considering whether Catholics have equal access to established religious freedoms? The KKK, it turns out, are explicitly a Protestant sect who have, in the past, protested The Satanic Temple. Hitler was a Catholic. Free Speech is not yielded to the heckler's veto. We will simply have to do better than pointing at one another and shouting insults."
Scheerbaum says the group plans on meeting to pray three rosaries every morning at 7 a.m. until next week’s school board meeting.
A discussion about the Satan Club is on the school board’s Dec.12 agenda. The After-School Satan Club plans to have its first meeting on Dec. 15.
We are following this story as it continues to develop. Stay with News 3 for updates.
