The ACLU of Iowa has filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the Satanic Temple asking the court to block state officials from keeping the group from having a holiday event in the State Capitol in December.
“This follows three separate complaints of religious discrimination that we filed with the Iowa Office of Civil Rights. in 2024, 2025 and 2026 for denials of equal use of the Capitol Rotunda, ” ACLU legal director Rita Bettis Austin. says. Bettis Austin she says Satanic Temple December holiday event was planned to be family friendly and the state violated several of the group’s rights.
She says they decided to file in federal court because they exhausted their state remedies and there is a statute of limitations on the federal claims. Bettis Austin says the state violated several of the group’s rights.
“The right to free speech, religious exercise, and non-discrimination under the first and 14th Amendments to the Constitution. And also that they violate the Iowa Civil Rights Act and Iowa’s new Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” she says.
Bettis Austin says the lawsuit seeks two things.”We’re asking that the court both require the state to stop the discrimination against our client by denying their ability to use that space while allowing all other religious and non-religious groups to do so. And we’re seeking damages for past violations,” Bettis Austin says.
Governor Kim Reynolds issued a written statement last year whne the Satanic Temple’s display was blocked that said the State Capitol is open to the public and “the State’s event policy takes into consideration conduct that would be harmful to minors.” Reynolds said the proposed “satanic event, which specifically targeted children, would have been harmful to children and so it was denied.”