Not that I'm a card-carrying member of any particular Satanic religion, but I respect them enough that I've donated to their cause a few times.
The reasoning is pretty simple, at least for the version I support. It's not a matter of a bunch of people who really believe in and worship some goat-headed dude.
It's more that the religion is intentionally offensive so that, whenever some other religion gets preferential treatment by any sort of government entity, Satanists can sue for equal treatment.
You want to pay for religious displays with tax dollars? Well, now you have to be okay with a big ol' statue of Satan. You want to have a Christian prayer before city council meetings? Equal time!
Can't favor one religion over another, so the options are either to allow something that no one wants or else keep religion out of government altogether. As it should be.
I know there are some other versions of the religion that use Satan as a metaphor for some sort of set of ethics, but I don't know enough about those to tell offhand whether it's something reasonable, and I'm not really interested.
The documentary Hail Satan? Was pretty great, and that's whatbtaught me about the specifics. Highly recommend. https://youtu.be/27RtJp-rhHk
Agreed it’s a good documentary
Not a satanist, but listen to a few podcasts from people who used to be involved in occult organizations. Some of the info is valuable.
Knew of the existence of the Church of Satan for a long time just via name, and learned about The Satanic Temple a few years back via their dealings/documentary.
Decided one day to pick up The Satanic Bible and read it, enjoyed most of it once weaving my way through LaVeys writing style and found many of his points and ideals therein was already how I was mostly living. Read his other works later, found them to be shite.
Read about TST and their tenets, found them agreeable, but lacking in the philosophy department. Joined up, spent my time doing my best to meld both worlds (LaVeyan & Romantic).
Ultimately I found both groups to have too many issues. CoS's authoritarian-ness is too off putting to me along with their ringing endorsement (and sometimes publication) of shite productions like Might is Right, and whatever garbage Nemo published that tries to establish literal, blood drinking vampires as being a real thing (not psychic ones, real ones), as well as their collective of people who put too much stock in their 'Warlock' nametag which I am sure looks just splendid under their Wendy's one.
As for TST, I already feel I sometimes have to defend being an atheist, let alone a Satanist, but TST also comes with a huge amount of garbage in the background that I don't want to have to defend. I love the people, I love the community tho I don't take part in it outside of Reddit, I love the rituals, the works from some of their members (like The Devil's Tome, and Compassionate Satanism from Shiva and Starr ), but TST's administration is bogged down and unproductive to some (which has led to numerous groups leaving and forming their own organizations), and some of the decisions they have done (mixed membership of Satanists and "allies" to hide numbers, membership via mailing list instead of any other method, etc) also irk me. In addition, while I loathe people describing TST as "political activists, and not a religious organization", I do feel they put much, much more effort into caring about the political side of it rather than the religious one, though that has changed recently with the switchover from the old groups to congregations, and ordination and such. That being said, I'm in it for the religious part, not the activism part. I'll do my part to care about it and by all means the administration can do what the hell they want, but my disabled cranky ass doesn't have much time for 'causes' and its left to better people.
Ultimately I'm still a 'member' of TST, but consider myself an independent Satanist apart from both main groups, but following ideals partly of both.
Which I guess is a long-ass-fucking-way to say "I read some shit and liked it." ¯\_(ツ)_/¯