In a recent Facebook post, the conservative, retrograde, fundamentalist group One Million Moms (whose membership doesn’t seem to have a tenth of that number; of course that link is 3 years old, so maybe they’ve seen a tremendous surge in membership over the years) expressed their concern over an upcoming show from FOX, Lucifer:

FOX has plans in 2016 to air “Lucifer,” a new series which will glorify Satan as a caring, likable person in human flesh.

The series will focus on Lucifer portrayed as a good guy, “who is bored and unhappy as the Lord of Hell.” He resigns his throne, abandons his kingdom and retires to Los Angeles, where he gets his kicks helping the LAPD punish criminals.

At the same time, God’s emissary, the angel Amenadiel, has been sent to Los Angeles to convince Lucifer to return to the underworld. 

Previews of the pilot episode depict graphic acts of violence, a nightclub featuring scantily-clad women and a demon.

Based (loosely, some might say) on characters from DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint, Lucifer follows the titular character (played by Tom Ellis) who decides he is tired of running hell and sets up shop in Los Angeles as a nightclub owner who wants to combat his millenia-old bad publicity:

Rush actor Tom Ellis plays the title role in the series, which explores what happens when the Lord of Hell decides to quit his job and move to Los Angeles. While that aspect of the series remains true to the comic book series, the television character’s decision to help the Los Angeles Police Department catch criminals is a pretty major departure from the more heady subject matter tackled by his comics counterpart.

Ellis is joined in the cast by Chicago Fire actress Lauren German as the LAPD detective who’s strangely immune to Lucifer’s charms, as well as Spartacus actress Lesley-Ann Brandt as a demon in human form who’s allied with Lucifer. D.B. Woodside (24) plays the angel Amenadiel, who’s tasked with convincing Lucifer to return to his realm in the underworld that he abandoned.

While Gaiman introduced the DC Comics version of Lucifer that inspired the series, it was writer Mike Carey who authored the popular, self-titled Lucifer series that ran for 75 issues and was published from 2000 to 2006.

Here’s the preview:

The idea of presenting Lucifer as a character who wants to combat his bad image and even being ::gasp:: likable? Well that’s just plain appalling to groups like One Million Moms (who love them some petitions). Given the theme of redemption inherent to Christianity, you’d think a group of religious people would support the most Evil Being® in all existence (OMG!!!) working to become a better person. After all, if Satan can become good (or at least not as evil), that says something about the power of redemption. If the Lord of Evil* can become a better person (or at least try) despite all the evil he’s done**, then us lowly humans born into sin***, definitely have a chance to bask in the presence of the Lord for all eternity. Your mileage may vary, but for me, that doesn’t sound like a good way to spend all eternity. It sounds rather like torture. In any case, the theme of redemption appears to be prominent in this show, so OMM ought to quit their complaining.

But they won’t.

Because Satan/Lucifer/The Lord of Evil can’t be nice. He can’t be likable. He can’t be anything approaching a decent person. And good golly gosh, he can’t be redeemed****! Attempts to paint Satan in a positive light are wrong because they mischaracterize Satan, who is an Evil Being®. As an Evil Being® we all know that Lucifer does not have good qualities. Depicted properly, Evil Beings® endorse, support, and condone slavery, rape, and infanticide. Evil Beings® are possessed of a bloodlust that must be sated with the ritual sacrifice of animals. They’re also petty tyrants who demand that their followers worship them, or else! Eternal Torment! Lake of Fire! Cut off From Being With Them For All Eternity! They create laws and commandments that prohibit people from engaging in completely innocuous activities like eating shellfish, wearing clothing with mixed fibers, dancing, consensual sexy funtimes, gambling, and more. Oh, and Evil Beings® will go on genocidal temper tantrums when their creations don’t act as they should (so glad that most human parents dpn’t kill their kids when they act up).

Whew. I guess that means Satan is safe. He hasn’t done any of those things. Good thing too, because then he’d be an Evil Being®. So my advice to One Million Moms-aside from “you ought to call yourselves Tens of Thousands of Moms” or “Moms who believe in religious nonsense” or my favorite “Moms who start petitions over harmless things”-you ought to start petitioning churches to quit worshiping that God guy. Between Him and Satan, it’s pretty clear which one is Evil-and it isn’t the guy with an upcoming tv show on FOX.

*Man, I love randomly capitalizing letters

**Or said to have done, bc honestly, I think Satan gets a bad rap

***Remember kids, sin is a fictional concept inherent to one particular strain of religion (out of thousands). Like other religious concepts, there is no basis in reality for this concept, so don’t get all confused thinking it applies to real world actions

****So sayeth One Million Hundred Thousand Moms