Satan’s Lobbyist: Colorado AG Phil Weiser Declares War on Satanic Temple, Opens Pandora’s Box for American Liberty
DENVER, CO – For decades, we have watched the slow, agonizing decay of the American social contract. We have seen the Bill of Rights weaponized, the First Amendment twisted into a pretzel, and the very concept of religious liberty turned into a legal circus. But this week, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser threw a Molotov cocktail into the middle of the ring.
In a move that has sent shockwaves through legal circles and left constitutional scholars clutching their pearls, Weiser has formally petitioned the Colorado Supreme Court to deny legal recognition to The Satanic Temple (TST). On its face, this sounds like a story about one politician standing up to a group of edgy atheists. Look closer, and you will see the scaffolding for the collapse of the very idea of a pluralistic America.
Let’s be clear about what is happening here. The Satanic Temple is not a group of people who worship a horned monster in a basement. They are a political and religious organization, recognized by the IRS as a legitimate church, that exists specifically to highlight government hypocrisy. They use satanic imagery to make a point: If Christians get a monument on the courthouse lawn, we want a monument too. If you allow a prayer group in a school, you must let our After School Satan Club meet in the library.
It is obnoxious. It is deliberately provocative. It is, by any reasonable standard, the purest, most maddening expression of the First Amendment we have ever seen.
And Phil Weiser wants to kill it.
In his legal filing, Weiser argues that TST is not a “real” religion. He claims they are a political organization masquerading as a faith to exploit loopholes in religious liberty laws. He calls their beliefs “empty rituals” and argues they don’t have a “sincere” belief in the supernatural.
This is where the alarm bells should be deafening in every American household.
Think about what Weiser is actually asking the court to do. He is asking the state of Colorado to become the arbiter of what constitutes a “sincere” belief in God. He is demanding that the government put on a robe, sit on a bench, and decide if a group’s theology is real enough to deserve protection.
Do you see the abyss we are staring into?
This is the exact same logic used to persecute minority religions for the last 400 years. When the Puritans hanged Quakers in Boston, they argued the Quakers’ beliefs weren’t “sincere.” When Mormons were driven out of Missouri, the state argued their theology was a political ploy. When Jehovah’s Witnesses were arrested for refusing to salute the flag, the courts argued their religious objections were “disingenuous.”
Weiser is using the exact same playbook. He is asking the government to be the thought police of the soul.
The Satanic Temple’s mission is, at its core, a mirror held up to our society. They expose the hypocrisy of a system that pretends to be secular but actually operates on a default Christian framework. When a town in Texas put up a Ten Commandments monument, TST asked for a Baphomet statue. The town quickly realized they didn’t want that fight, and the monument came down. That is the point. They are the gadfly of the American religious landscape.
By trying to legally de-platform them, Weiser is not protecting the faithful. He is making the case that the government can decide which faith is valid. And if the government can decide that for The Satanic Temple, it can decide that for your church.
Imagine a future where a liberal AG decides that a conservative Christian church’s stance on marriage is “not a sincere religious belief” but a political statement about discrimination. Or where a conservative AG decides that a Muslim community center’s call to prayer is “a political provocation” rather than a religious ceremony. That is the door Weiser is trying to pry open.
The immediate impact on daily American life is already being felt. Parents in Colorado who have fought for their right to have a Bible study on school grounds are now watching this case with horror. If the state can say TST isn’t a religion, what stops a future administration from saying their Bible study is just a “political book club” with no protection?
The Satanic Temple knows this. In their response to Weiser, they did not argue about the existence of Satan. They argued about the *process*. “The Attorney General’s office is asking the court to become a theological review board,” their statement read. “This is a direct attack on the separation of church and state.”
And they are right.
This is not a story about a cool, subversive group of atheists. This is a story about the rot at the core of our governing philosophy. We have spent the last fifty years hollowing out our public institutions. We have replaced shared moral understanding with raw legal power. And now, the only thing standing between you and the government telling you what you can and cannot believe is a group of people dressed in black robes and fake horns.
Weiser is banking on public disgust with The Satanic Temple. He is betting that Americans are so offended by the imagery of Baphomet and the mockery of their faith that they will cheer the government’s power grab. He is counting on the mob to clap as the Constitution is shredded.
But history does not remember the mob. History remembers the men who opened the door.
Phil Weiser is not defending Christianity. He is building the machine that will eventually crush it. When the pendulum swings the other way, and it always does, the precedent he establishes today will be used against the very people he claims to protect.
The Satanic Temple may be weird. They may be offensive. They may make you uncomfortable at the town council meeting. But they are a legal and religious organization operating within the bounds of the law. If you allow the government to define what is a “real” religion to silence them, you are handing over the keys to the kingdom.
And you will never get them back.
Final Thoughts
After reading through the arc of Phil Weiser’s tenure, it’s clear he’s been more than a technocrat in a robe; he’s tried to mold the attorney general’s office into a bulwark against the chaos of unchecked corporate power and political tribalism. The real test, however, isn’t in the press releases or coalition letters—it’s in the quiet, grinding work of enforcing antitrust law against Big Tech and defending democratic norms, where the wins are often procedural and the losses are loud. My takeaway: Weiser represents a necessary but fragile model for the modern AG—someone who understands that the law isn’t just a lever for political ambition, but a tool for structural accountability, even when the political winds shift.