The Broward County school board is scheduled to rule on Tuesday what signs are permissible on school campuses following challenges from a contentious advocate who requested to hang ‘Satan Loves the First Amendment’ banners on school grounds.
Timothy “Chaz” Stevens filed a lawsuit earlier this year against the school district after local schools denied his request to hang the provocative banners, but allowed signs from Christian churches.
“They gotta let me in or they gotta remove everybody,” Stevens, who in the lawsuit calls himself as the leader of the 'Church of Satanology,' told WLRN.
Until recently, school board policy didn’t prohibit religious organizations from displaying signage in schools, but it stated they must represent community standards, uphold the board’s philosophy, and “be non-political or sectarian in nature.”
Stevens sued the district in September, arguing it engaged in viewpoint discrimination by letting Christian church banners hang but not his “Satan Loves the First Amendment” sign. The lawsuit climbed to federal court a month later.
District administrators ordered religious signs to come down while they reviewed the rules.
Kevin Goldberg, a First Amendment specialist from the nonpartisan nonprofit Freedom Forum, said the law is on Stevens’ side.
“The First Amendment has always meant that all viewpoints — religious, political — any viewpoints of any kind have to be treated equally,” Goldberg said.
The proposed rule changes, if approved by Broward County Public Schools, would prohibit religious organizations from hanging advertisements in schools, but non-religious businesses and organizations would still be welcomed.
READ MORE: Broward Schools committee rejects plan to close elementary school in Lauderhill
Churches argue their constitutionally protected right to freedom of speech would be violated. If businesses are allowed to hang signage to promote themselves, then they also should be accepted. It would be discriminatory to exclude them from engaging in public community forums, they argue.
“I don't blame the churches," Stevens said. He supports their right to advertise if that's what the rules allow, but “it's all or nothing. So if they want in, I should get in.”
Free exercise of religion
Goldberg explained this case is a reaction to the recent wave of conservative Christians fervently advocating for free exercise of religion and upping expressions of faith in public, like the struck-down Louisiana law that would’ve required the Ten Commandments to hang in classrooms.
“If free exercise means that we're going to have a more active role for religion in the public sphere,” Goldberg said, “then that must mean all religions.”
And while Stevens doesn’t praise Satan — he calls himself an atheist — he says the government doesn’t have the authority to determine which religions are more sincere than others.
Stevens is known in Florida for his unorthodox advocacy strategies. Last year he challenged the Bible’s place in Broward school libraries, claiming it “is too sensitive or controversial” for public school students. He says he has spent thirty years defending the First Amendment. “This is invaluable to me.”
He already took on the Palm Beach County School District when, in 2017, he submitted the same request to hang Satan-related banners on school grounds. As a result, the district adopted a policy more explicitly prohibiting religious organizations from advertising, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
“Examples of inappropriate business partner fence screen recognitions include, but are not limited to: churches; organizations which as its primary function furthers, promotes or seeks to establish a religious tenet or position about religion or spirituality, including agnosticism, atheism, or satanism,” the Palm Beach County policy reads.
Broward’s proposed rules will likely be similar, Broward’s chief communications and legislative affairs officer John Sullivan told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
The School Board is scheduled to meet Tuesday, Dec. 17 at 8:45 a.m. to vote on the proposed policy change.
You can listen to a conversation on this story in the most recent episode of the South Florida Roundup here or or wherever you get your podcasts by searching: The South Florida Roundup.
