July 09, 2013
Source: Shutterstock
In his first letter to “God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces,” the apostle (then Pope, later Saint) Peter warned his flock:
[Y]our adversary the Devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.
The vague yet troubling notion persists, voiced by preachers, pop novelists, reporters, and rock stars alike: that from Salem to San Francisco, the Devil has done a helluva lot of that roaring and walking about in the United States of America.
So you could practically hear Jack Chick screaming, “I told you so!” last week when news emerged that pro-abortion demonstrators in Austin had tried to drown out pro-lifers by chanting “Hail, Satan!”
Naturally, the liberal media that gave us the priceless expression “Fake but Accurate“ reacted as it always does when its comrades are caught doing or saying something insanely embarrassing and ridiculous.
First: They denied it happened as reported.
Next: They admitted it happened but insisted it was exaggerated, ironic, done by “right-wing plants” or “taken out of context.”
Finally: They admitted it wasn”t exaggerated or taken out of context but insisted that it’s no big deal anyhow.
The Atlantic Wire”s Elspeth Reeve”whose reputation for unbiased, impartial accuracy is famously shaky“used the first two tactics while trying to defuse another report coming out of those same Austin demonstrations.
Reeve scolded “the conservative Internet” for spreading a “fake” photo showing a little girl standing outside the Texas legislature holding a pro-choice picket sign that read, “If I Wanted The Government In My Womb, I Would F*** A Senator!”
Shortly thereafter, Reeve was forced to admit in a correction: “The photo is real!” She felt obligated to opine that it was “gross.”
Normally at this juncture in meme evolution, lefties would be selling “Hail Satan!” T-shirts, buttons, and bumper stickers. Lorne Michaels would be trying to get Dana Carvey on the phone. A quickie, catchy pro-choice anthem embracing the phrase and sung “We Are the World”-style by Will Ferrell’s pals would”ve been posted at Funny or Die and gone viral.
Not this time.
At the height of all the #HailSatan hilarity on the left side of Twitter, a single thunderclap of a Tweet shut down the party pronto:
Unfortunate to see Satan’s name used in such a diabolical manner. Another example of what “Satanism” doesn”t represent. #HailSatan”—@UKChurchofSatan
It was that utterly breathtaking inclusion of the word “diabolical” that got me thinking like a liberal: that is, that the @UKChurchofSatan Twitter account had to be fake, set up specifically to mock the proceedings, in the tradition of “Clint’s Empty Chair.”
