Welcome to Queerty’s latest entry in our series, Queerantined: Daily Dose. Every weekday as long as the COVID-19 pandemic has us under quarantine, we’ll release a suggested bit of gloriously queer entertainment designed to keep you from getting stir crazy in the house. Each weekend, we will also suggest a binge-able title to keep you extra engaged.
The Tongue in Cheek: Hail Satan?
We first heard rumblings about this wild documentary at Sundance 2019. Now the time has come for us to recommend our readers give it a look, and prepare to cackle maniacally.
Hail Satan? chronicles the rise of The Satanic Temple, a grassroots organization of activists, not to be confused with the actual Church of Satan, which worships Satan as part of religious dogma. The Satanic Temple first emerged in 2013 under the eye of founder Lucian Greaves as a group dedicated to keeping church and state separate. Much to the ire of conservatives–and the talking heads of Fox News–the Temple used religious freedom laws to its own advantage as a means of self-promotion, shaming overreaching religious groups bent on Christianizing the secular government, and overturning religious-based laws used to discriminate against LGBTQ people. Less a religion than a group of performance artists, The Satanic Temple cares more about protecting civil liberties and fighting back against faith-based oppression than promoting a dude with a pitchfork.
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Oh, and the Temple once posthumously “converted” Fred Phelps’ (of the Westboro Baptist Church) mother to lesbianism by performing a ritual on her gravesite that involved same-sex kissing and a Lucian Greaves rubbing his testicles on her tombstone. So, there’s that.
What began as simple contrarian hell-raising develops into a full-blown movement–something Greaves and his early followers didn’t anticipate, which brings with it a whole new set of problems. Funny, ridiculous and, to our surprise, uplifting, Hail Satan? is more fun that its title implies, and much more thought-provoking than detractors of the Temple would like to admit.
Streams on Hulu, Amazon, iTunes & YouTube.
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Catholicslutbox
Great movie.
Hail Satan.
Cam
It’s hilarious how religious groups that have fought for decades to keep religious symbols up in public spaces or pass out religious literature in schools quickly fold once this group sues to get a statue of satan put up in a public square or to hand out their “religious literature” promoting science and women’s health.
radiooutmike
Sometimes, you have to fight fire with fire.
They’re smart to be sure. But their genius was staying with Satan, rather than going with the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Co-opting the devil for good is frigging awesome.
SPEEDOSWIMMER
*enthusiastic heartfelt genuinely ecstatic applause*
Norm
These religious people who own businesses will deny a person birth control because they say it’s against their religious beliefs. Someone has to find a way and find something that is against their religious beliefs that will deny these businesses from doing business at all. Fight fire with fire is the right way to go against this bulls…. Mike Pence goes against my religious beliefs because he’s religious and inflicts his religious beliefs on others when the government is not supposed to support religion. I think about it all the time. I’d love to go down in history as the one who stuck it up the religious fanatic’s ass and rid the country of this sick religious freedom law.
JanDivine
I just thank God I am an atheist. I think we all have the same rights.
Woteva
Nobody ever ‘turned’ anyone gay!