It must be one of the greatest headlines of all time: Mississippi police want to arrest the satanists who turn dead people gay. It dates from 2013, when the newly formed Satanic Temple (ST) — angered that members of the hate-filled Westboro Baptist Church planned to picket the funerals of Boston marathon bombing victims — performed a so-called Pink Mass over the grave of Catherine Johnston, the mother of the church’s preacher Fred Phelps.
Satanic Temple co-founder Lucien Greaves conducted a ritual that involved two same-sex couples kissing, then Greaves himself dangling his testicles over the headstone. “The Pink Mass is a satanic ritual performed after death that turns the deceased’s straight spirit into a homo one,” wrote Vice reporter Jonathan Smith with no apparent mockery. “It’s not unlike the Mormon practice of baptising the dead, only gayer.”