“This may be the world’s largest ever gathering of Satanists – and it’s about to begin at a Marriott hotel in downtown Boston.”

No, it’s not Kongress. There are only 535 satanists, +-3, on Crapitol Hill. Allegedly 830 gathered in Beantown the other day, for their usual evil purposes.

It’s clear the experience was powerful for them.

“As a gay child, being told you are an abomination and should be destroyed, warped a lot of my thinking. Finding The Satanic Temple has really helped me embrace logic and empathy.”

The Satanic Temple is recognised as a religion by the US government, and has ministers and congregations in America, Europe and Australia.

More than 830 people snapped up tickets for its late April convention, dubbed SatanCon.

Members say they don’t actually believe in a literal Lucifer or Hell. Instead, they say Satan is a metaphor for questioning authority, and grounding your beliefs in science. The sense of community around these shared values makes it a religion, they say.

They do use the symbols of Satan for rituals – for example when celebrating a wedding or adopting a new name. That might include having an upside-down neon cross on your altar while shouting: “Hail Satan!”

For many Christians, this is serious blasphemy.

This is serious blasphemy – the only kind – for all Christians. That the US government recognizes this evil religion tells one something. This evil is the religion of the GAE. In the future, any actual Americans should consider handling situations like this the way they used to deal with them in the old days around the Bay.