Sen. Mike McKay (R-Western Maryland) said cults and fringe religious groups might be recognized by a bill Sen. Cheryl C. Kagan (D-Montgomery) said was merely meant to add gender- and religion-neutral terms to state law. (Photo by Bryan P. Sears/Maryland Matters)
Two Republican senators are worried the Devil is in the details of a bill that makes technical changes to state law, fearing it will open the door to state recognition of Satan, cults, witches, “weirdo sects” and racists.
The 18-page bill, sponsored by Sen. Cheryl C. Kagan (D-Montgomery), makes technical changes to sections of state law to make them more gender and religion neutral.
Kagan’s bill isn’t sorcery but it did conjure up controversy after Sens. Mike McKay and Chris West raised concerns about a dozen words included in a committee amendment. Kagan said that language — “any other religious society or congregation or any sect, order or denomination” — was merely an attempt by the Education, Energy and Environment Committee to more precisely define the term religious institution without using the word to define itself.
West and McKay saw trouble, and delayed a preliminary vote on the bill until Tuesday.
“I am concerned where it says any other religious society or congregation — I’m just going to ask it, is the House of Satan, does that fall into it?” McKay (R-Western Maryland) asked.
“I don’t think the House of Satan is in our code,” Kagan said during the exchange on the Senate Floor.
“There are always new religions. There are smaller religions that we may not be familiar with,” said Kagan, the vice chair of the Education, Energy and the Environment Committee. “So, what we wanted to capture in the definition were the primary religions in the state, without doing a whole laundry list.”
In a later interview, McKay said he misspoke and meant to reference The Satanic Temple.
McKay also expressed concern about potential recognition of “cult like” groups including the Zizians. Three members of that group, arrested Sunday in Allegany County, have been linked to the shooting of a federal border agent in Vermont.
“I just want to make sure that we’re not … yielding to some form of a cult or whatever that may have been in the news that were arrested in Allegany County,” said McKay, who represents the county.
West (R-Baltimore County) said the committee amendment seemed too expansive, and he dismissed concerns that attempts to narrow the language in it might run afoul of First Amendment protection of religion.
“Maybe what you’re saying is, anybody who says I’m a church, we ought to give them official state recognition. I’m not sure we have to do that,” West said in an interview after the floor session. “We’re not impairing their right to worship freely, which is what the First Amendment is all about.
“I’m not sure exactly what the code does for churches,” he said. “I’d have to go back and read the 100 and some references to say the purpose of this is not in any way to impair someone’s right to worship freely even if you’re really weird, but I’m not sure why the state of Maryland has to give an official recognition.”
But Kagan said the bill merely tries to identify and replace terms like “clergymen” and others with gender and religiously neutral terms.
“This is really just about making sure that we more accurately reflect the spiritual diversity of our state,” Kagan said on the Senate floor.
The changes touch roughly 20 articles of state law. Kagan said they found 142 separate uses of the word “church.”
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“Really we’re talking about churches, synagogues, temples, mosques, any place where people gather to pray,” Kagan said. “And so we changed the definition, clarified the definition, and changed it in all places. We also took care, took out gendered language that said clergy man and just said member of the clergy.”
McKay said his concerns arose in part from an Indiana case involving The Satanic Temple, a group based in Salem, Massachusetts, that was established in 2013 to counter what it saw as an “intrusion of Christian values in American politics.”
Since its founding, it has filed legal challenges to religious displays such as Nativity scenes on government property, often joined by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
In 2015, The Satanic Temple sued Franklin County, Indiana, after the government there allowed a Nativity scene on the county courthouse grounds. Its lawsuit sought to allow other groups the opportunity to places displays on the property.
The Satanic Temple was allowed to erect a representation last year of “Baphomet” — a goat-headed man — in front of the New Hampshire State House. Government officials said they issued the permit to avoid a potential First Amendment lawsuit, according to the Miami Herald.
McKay said he was concerned the committee amendment might open the door to The Satanic Temple or other groups.
“Whether you agree or you disagree about a Christmas Nativity scene being on church property, the [The Satanic Temple] was allowed to then put right next to it, a (Satanic Temple) nativity scene that, in all honesty, I felt mocked Christianity,” he said.
West said he looked up the term “faith institutions” during floor debate “and I found some weird organizations.”
“I found, just a quick perusal, the Fellowship of ISIS,” he said. ” I found the Dianic Wicca, which is a witch organization. I found the Assembly of Christian Soldiers, which is a Ku Klux Klan organization. So would this amendment include those in the terms ‘other religious society or congregation or any sect, order or denomination’?”
Kagan told West the bill was an update of Maryland law that does not include formal recognition of specific religions.
“But words have meanings,” said West, an attorney.
In an interview after the debate, West restated his concerns about the committee amendment and said he plans to craft his own in time for Tuesday’s debate.
“The amendment would talk about churches and synagogues and Hindus and Buddhist, the major denominations, and skip the stuff about any other sect that would be one,” West said.
Another possible amendment, West said, would be to define a sect as a group “which has at least 500 members in Maryland, which would get rid of the weirdo sects.”