Ethan Gabel, a math teacher at Kirksville High School in Missouri since 2012 and the head coach of the Boys and Girls Cross Country teams since 2016, won’t be returning in the latter role next season after Christians interpreted his satirical tweets to mean he wanted to impose Satanism upon students.

The chaos began in late June after the Supreme Court handed down the Bremerton decision. The right-wing majority said that high school football coach Joe Kennedy had every right to conduct performative, coercive Christian prayers at midfield after games despite all the evidence showing how his attention-seeking stunts were harming students on the team. In response to the ruling, Gabel jokingly tweeted about how he was going to follow suit and inject some Satanism onto his Cross Country athletes.

He said things like, “Why, yes. I will be praying to Satan around your children” and “I should be able to sacrifice a goat to Lucifer after a cross country meet this year!”

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