Target partnered with a trans-promoting fashion brand that advocates for Satan. And it's barely even shocking that they did. Among the Pride paraphernalia and trans merch for kids are items from AB Prallen, which also makes a line of Satanic pins.
"Live your truth," AB Prallen writes on their site under a collection of Pride pins in pastel trans colors. "Satan respects pronouns," the pins read.
“Satan loves you and respects who you are. You're important and valuable in this world and you deserve to treat yourself with love and respect," AB Prallen's site reads.
The brand was founded by Erik, who claims to be a "gay trans man." In layman's terms, this is a straight woman who takes testosterone and is sexually attracted to gay men, presumably. Erik poses with head cocked in feminine fashion, a slight, Mona Lisa smile on bearded face. Erik's work is colored in pastels and soft, femme patterns.
"I've been thinking a lot lately about The Satanic Temple," Erik writes as part of the description for the Satanic pins, "and to a lesser extent, The Church of Satan, how they're so frequently misunderstood and demonised (pun not intended) and how LGBT+ people are so often referred to as being a product of Satan or going against God's will."
Erik digs into the notion that Satan, that ultimate glamour of easy evil and convenient sin, is not even a religious figure, and that "Satanists don't actually believe in Satan." This, of course, is a myth. Satanists fool themselves into thinking that evil is not at the root of their Church. Satan would rather his followers not believe in him, think him innocuous, but evil is not innocuous. It is a force set on destroying human beings and torturing them away from God’s love and light.
One can almost see the grisly, slick smile of the dark beast, and see the glory he takes in having evil itself separated from the symbol of it, himself. Erik of AB Prallen has fallen into the trap of believing that the representation of evil is actually a figure of love.
"He is merely used as a symbol of passion, pride, and liberty," Erik writes, fully taken in by these lies designed to trap people in sin and remove them from God's love and light. "He means to you what you need him to mean. So for me, Satan is hope, compassion, equality, and love."
Satan is none of those things. Satan lies. Satan is the same evil creature that promises the world and delivers eternal damnation. The goal of evil is to make sin easy, convenient, and comfy, like slipping into a warm bath.
Evil does not start out in darkness and despair, that comes later. Evil begins with glitter and sparkles, bright colors, illusions of beauty. But it sucks you in and leaves you empty, desperate and alone.
"So, naturally," Erik writes, "Satan respects pronouns. He loves all LGBT+ people. The Church of Satan openly accepts LGBT+ people, it has done since it was created in the 60s and the more recent Satanic Temple accepts them too, with open arms."
Is it any wonder that evil would couch itself in love? In messages that bodily desecration, such as dangerous drugs and surgeries, are avenues to self-fulfillment and satisfaction? This messaging swoops in with the illusion of love and leaves behind bodies ravaged by unnecessary surgeries and permanently altered through chemical interference.
And it begins with pronouns, which look like the first step of acceptance and embrace but are really a glamour of leading a young person along a downhill path straight to hell.
For Erik and AB Prallen, the image of Satan is charming and cute, exactly as a predator would wish to appear to a vulnerable young girl who believes her attraction to men, while not adhering to female stereotypes means she is a gay man.
Erik writes, "[P]ersonally I think Baphomet, a mystical deity, looks very charming in their pastel colours; Baphomet themself is a mixture of genders, beings, ideas, and existences. They hardly fit into binary stereotypes."
Target has removed the AB Prallen LGBTQ merch from their stores. It's not available online, either. The allure of Satan, his charms, his delights, his false promises, and "affirming" embraces has infiltrated our culture and is targeting the most vulnerable and confused among us.
