The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Iowa has filed a lawsuit against Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, alleging that her office refused to provide documents related to the cancellation of a Satanic Temple of Iowa ritual that was planned to take place at the State Capitol.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of the Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers (IAF), accuses Gov. Reynolds’ office of violating the state’s open records law and seeks to force them to release the requested records.
In December 2024, the Satanic Temple of Iowa planned to hold a winter event in the rotunda of the Iowa State Capitol, which is traditionally used for religious displays during the holiday season, including a nativity scene. According to a report from the Des Moines Register at the time, “Members of the Satanic Temple of Iowa planned to sing Satanic carols, and hold a Krampus costume contest and a Satanic ritual.”
The state cancelled the event because part of the display would be harmful to minors.
“After careful consideration of administrative rule and DAS policy, I determined the totality of the event request to include elements that are harmful to minors and therefore denied the request,” Adam Steen, the director of the Iowa DAS, said in a statement provided to the Register.
Reynolds said in her own statement, “The Iowa State Capitol Complex is a place that is open to the public, where children and families routinely visit,” she said. “Because of this, the state’s event policy takes into consideration conduct that would be harmful to minors. This satanic event, which specifically targets children, is harmful to minors and so it was denied.”
The Satanic Temple responded to the cancellation with a Facebook post that claimed, “Our goal was to promote tolerance and acceptance of diverse religious beliefs, with a theme of finding a light in the darkness and welcoming the darkest nights of the year with joy and camaraderie.”
According to a press release from the ACLU, the IAF had filed a Freedom of Information Request under the Iowa Open Records Act to request “communications and documents in the possession of the Governor’s Office relating to the State of Iowa’s decision to cancel” the event and display.
“The Governor’s Office refused to produce the requested documents, citing ‘executive privilege,’ even though what was requested was clearly non-privileged: an executive agency report and documents relating to media preparation,” the press release continued. “Some relevant materials were turned over, but much was redacted. Also, the Governor’s Office provided hundreds of pages of news clippings that mentioned the controversy but which did not actually address the request.”
Thomas Story, ACLU of Iowa staff attorney, said, “This lawsuit challenges the Governor’s claim of an unprecedented ‘executive privilege’ to defy Iowa law. For more than half a century, the Iowa Open Records Act has ensured that the work of the state happens in the open. Now, the Governor’s Office has decided it alone gets to decide what the public sees. The Iowa Constitution does not give it this authority.
“The specific documents withheld from the public eye in this case are an executive agency report from the Department of Administrative Services and multiple ‘media prep’ documents. These are not the kind of sensitive matters of national security and foreign diplomacy that courts have protected from disclosure under executive privilege in the past. It may be embarrassing to the Governor’s Office to reveal its role in denying a religious group equal access to the state capitol building, but that does not give it the right to hide what it did and why it did it.”
The ACLU’s lawsuit was filed hours after Gov. Reynolds’ office sued the Des Moines Register over the newspaper’s public records requests.
The governor’s office had not publicly responded to the ACLU lawsuit at the time of publication.
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