Pennsylvania gets its first after-school Satan Club this week. In Hellertown.

This week, kids in the Lehigh Valley will get to join in a different kind of after-school program. You could say it had a hell of a time getting there.

A federal judge has ordered that the Saucon Valley School District — located, ironically, in Hellertown — must allow the After School Satan Club, sponsored by The Satanic Temple, to meet on its property.

It will be the first After School Satan Club in Pennsylvania. New Jersey and Delaware currently have no After School Satan Clubs. So far, six students have signed up for the club, which begins Wednesday, and more are expected.

The preliminary injunction, granted May 1, is the latest development in a months-long, emotionally fraught controversy that saw the club with the slogan “Educatin’ with Satan” get district approval to meet only to have it rescinded.

U.S. District Court Judge John M. Gallagher ruled in favor of The Satanic Temple.

“When confronted with a challenge to free speech, the government’s first instinct must be to forward expression rather than quash it. Particularly when the content is controversial or inconvenient,” Gallagher wrote. “Nothing less is consistent with the expressed purpose of American government to secure the core, innate rights of its people.

“Here, although The Satanic Temple, Inc.’s objectors may challenge the sanctity of this controversially named organization,” he continued, “the sanctity of the First Amendment’s protections must prevail.”

Gallagher said he did not believe Saucon Valley’s claim that it withdrew the club’s approval because it failed to include a disclaimer in some of its advertisements that the district didn’t sponsor the group. Rather, he said he believed the approval was pulled based on the Satanic Temple’s “controversial viewpoint.”

Saucon Valley school superintendent Jaime Vlasaty did not respond to requests for comment. The district, near Allentown, has three schools and about 2,000 students.

Satanic Temple leaders referred comment to the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, which represented them.

“We’re very pleased that the court saw the school district’s justification for canceling the contract was basically just a pretext for viewpoint discrimination because of community opposition toward the club,” said Sara Rose, the state ACLU’s deputy legal director. “And of course, we’re very glad that the club’s going to be able to meet during this school year on the same terms as other clubs have been allowed to meet.”

The club will meet this Wednesday, May 17, and May 31 at the district’s middle school, according to the agreement reached through the court case.

They will have to reapply to the district for permission to use school facilities in fall, Rose said.

It was quite an ordeal for all concerned getting this far.

When Superintendent Vlasaty notified the district community last February that the After School Satan Club had been given permission to meet at the middle school, she explained the district has allowed other religious groups to use its facilities over the years and legally could not discriminate.

Many parents reacted with anger and fear. The leader of a local Christian group vowed to hold a prayer session March 8, the day the program was supposed to open. The district got scores of concerned calls and emails.

“Then please shut down all religious after-school clubs if that’s what needs to be done to keep Satan out of that building,” read one email sent to the district.

“What’s next, the after school heroin club?” asked another.

But things really heated up when a caller, upset about the After School Satan Club, left the district a voice mail threatening to come and “shoot everybody.” All Saucon Valley schools were closed the next day as a precaution. Shortly after, a 20-year-old North Carolina man was arrested by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police.

Days after the threatening call, the Saucon Valley superintendent withdrew the district’s approval. Not long after that, supporters of the After School Satan Club turned to the courts.

The Satanic Temple, headquartered in Salem, Mass., is no stranger to controversy, but its leaders say they are often misunderstood.

Although The Satanic Temple is recognized by the IRS as a church and a religious — albeit nontheistic — corporation, its more than 700,000 members don’t worship Satan. For them, Satan is a symbol for the “Eternal Rebel,” according to their website. They are against “tyrannical authority” and support “individual sovereignty,” as well as empathy, compassion, and defiance.

The Satan Temple has waged public battles against the religious and GOP right on issues involving First Amendment freedoms, LGBTQ rights, and abortion access.

Their approach has been often irreverent. In keeping with their belief in bodily autonomy, one of the temple members’ latest projects is an online clinic which aims to provide abortion medication by mail. They call it the Samuel Alito’s Mom’s Satanic Abortion Clinic.

There are currently only seven active After School Satan Clubs, according to Everett. These clubs are only started in school districts that already have programs by other religious groups, like the Christian Evangelical-based Good News Club, which Saucon Valley has allowed.

The leaders say their clubs don’t try to convert children to Satanism, but focus on free inquiry, rationalism, and appreciation of the natural world. The fliers for the Saucon Valley program promised kids ages 5 to 12 science and community service projects, puzzles, games, nature activities, arts and crafts, snacks “& tons of fun.”

The Satanic Temple also operates the Hellion Academy of Independent Learning (HAIL), its alternative to Christian-based religious instruction programs. The Northern York County School District’s school board voted down a proposed After School Satan Club last year. But the district has allowed released time instruction by the Joy El Bible Adventure program. So last year HAIL started in the district as well, according to Everett.

No other districts in Pennsylvania or New Jersey currently have the HAIL project.