The determination of whether or not a group meets IRS criteria does not rise to the level of the White House.
"So it's interesting," DeSantis said, "I heard this and then I was like 'how did it get there? Is that even a religion?' And lo and behold, the Trump administration gave them approval to be under the IRS as a religion. So that gave them the legal ability to do it. So I don't know what the legislature—how they analyzed it, but it very well may be because of that ruling under Donald Trump they may have had a leg to stand."
"My view would be that's not a religion that the founding fathers were trying to create, but I do think that IRS ruling, I was really surprised to see that they did that."
Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, who endorsed DeSantis for president, condemned the presence of the satanic altar and "holiday display" in the capitol building after backlash. The Satanic Temple was permitted to put up the display for two weeks, as are many other groups.
The Satanic Temple gained IRS charitable status as a church in 2019. This designation means that The Satanic Temple is tax-exempt for federal taxes. However, the designation is not a ruling by the administration overseeing the IRS at any given time has taken an official stance on the validity of the group as a church. The group has 56 "congregations" across the US and Canada.
The group is based in Salem, Mass. and is officially designated as "a church or a convention of churches." However, it directly takes aim at the religions of others and protests their existence in public life such as demanding that Christian religious representations are removed from public spaces.
The criteria that must be met by a church to attain status as a tax-exempt church or religious organization with the IRS is that it must show that the church is made up of "a coherent group of individuals and families that join together to accomplish the religious purposes of mutually held beliefs."
The determination of whether or not a group meets IRS criteria does not rise to the level of the White House.
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