Gwydion Tiamat's precaution against hate crimes against Satanists and Pagans - P.S. to my response to Hrafnkell

In a comment beneath my previous post, "Are Satanists Pagans?" - response to Hrafnkell, Hrafnkell posted a link to the Washington Post article A Capital City With The Devil in the Details? by Dan Morse, Wednesday, April 9, 2008; Page C01.

The relevant part, on page 2 of the article, says:

The Washington Monument ... was described by Bay, the South Carolina author, as a filthy, phallic and satanic homage to the god Baal.

Unlikely, said an avowed Satanist from Laurel.

He agreed to meet at the Washington Monument recently, strolling up the Mall in a long black robe and passing through a throng of sun-drenched tourists. A government contracting employee, the 37-year-old spoke on the condition that he be identified only by his satanic name (Gwydion Tiamat). Friends' houses have been firebombed, he said, and they're just pagans.

A husband and father and the director of the East Coast office of the Brotherhood of Satan, he said "a couple of thousand" Satanists live in the Washington area. This is a group that is widely misunderstood, he said: Members don't sacrifice cats; they're not out to hurt people; they simply acknowledge that humans are carnal animals and enjoy the freedoms and indulgences that flow from that understanding. "Having a whole Sara Lee strawberry cheesecake, for example," he said.

And in one sense, he mused, while looking toward the Lincoln Memorial and the infinite regions beyond, McCain is right.

"Satan," said Tiamat, "is everywhere."

I find nothing here contradicting my earlier interpretation of Gwydion Tiamat's remark about his friends who were "just pagans." Again, it seems to me he's saying not that these particular friends of his were also Satanists, but that, if even his Pagan friends' houses got firebombed, then he, as a Satanist, would be in even more danger.

I seriously doubt his estimate of "a couple of thousand" Satanists living in the D.C. area. I think a couple hundred would be more like it, if that many.

There are, after all, far fewer Satanists than modern Pagans, even in anonymous media like Internet forums. I've seen estimates of between half a million and a million modern Pagans in the entire United States. I would not expect the number of Satanists to exceed 5% of the number of modern Pagans, which would give us a maximum of 50,000 Satanists in the entire U.S.A. More likely I would expect there to be between 10,000 and 20,000 Satanists in the entire U.S.A.

The Washington Post article starts out as follows:

Presidential candidate John McCain keeps calling Washington the city of Satan. Turns out he's not alone.

"McCain was right," said David Bay, speaking by phone from Lexington, S.C., where as director of Cutting Edge Ministries he has long asserted that Washington's streets are positioned to usher in Lucifer as "the ultimate master of Government Center."

...

Using Dupont and Logan circles as northern points, Bay instructs, you can trace various interlocking streets to form a demonic pentagram, one that bores directly into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

This is followed by a brief summary of typical anti-Masonic claims, followed by a brief retort from a Mason.