Pastor Votes Against Witch Museum, Museum Hands Students Free Tickets

What happened

The senior class at Batavia High School, in New York, asked its school board to sign off on a Boston trip next summer. As Friendly Atheist reported, the draft plan included a Duck Tour, a cruise with dinner, and a visit to the Salem Witch Museum, and the students intended to raise money to cut the cost. For the Batavia City Schools board, approval should have been a formality.

It was not a formality for board member Dan Schmidt, who is also lead pastor of the Batavia Assembly of God Church. According to the outlet, he argued that Christian students wouldn’t want to go and would feel left out if their friends did, and he called the venue Satanic. Two details went unweighed: the itinerary was only a draft, and the museum, the outlet notes, documents the witch trials of the 1600s and the broader danger of witch hunts. It does not recruit for witchcraft.

Speaking to a reporter afterward, Schmidt conceded “I can’t really say that I know the history of it” (Dan Schmidt, as quoted by Friendly Atheist). He then offered a forecast on behalf of upper management: “I think Jesus would frown on this” (Dan Schmidt, as quoted by Friendly Atheist). He cast the only vote against the trip; the rest of the board approved it.

A parent of one of the student organizers then started a fundraiser, at first just for museum admission; it raised enough to help with the whole trip. The outlet’s author, the parent and museum staff then talked, and the Salem Witch Museum agreed to give every visiting Batavia senior a free ticket. Rachel Christ-Doane, its Director of Education, said the museum had never faced backlash of this kind, with a whole group discouraged from coming, and that staff knew at once they wanted to comp the tickets. With admission free, the fundraiser can lower the trip’s price for students who might not afford it, or pay the whole way for a few. Schmidt did not respond to the outlet’s request for comment.

Hellpdesk’s take

Thank you for your patience. Hell’s customer service line has once again been named in a complaint we did not file, about a building we do not operate, concerning a field trip we were not invited on. For the record: the Salem Witch Museum is not one of our franchises. It is a history museum. We checked the org chart.

The issue is not that a pastor dislikes witches. Pastors may dislike whatever they like. The issue is where he said it. A public school board is a government body, and a member who brings his theology to the table and votes on what he thinks Jesus would frown on has confused the board table with the pulpit. Different departments, different forms. One of them is funded by every taxpayer in the district, including those who never attend his church.

Then there is the admission. The member who voted against a history lesson later said he couldn’t really claim to know the history. Hellpdesk doesn’t comment on anyone’s intelligence; that’s against policy. We comment on the paperwork, and the paperwork reads: objection filed, subject unread. That is exactly the sequence the museum warns about. Its subject, per the outlet, is what happens when a community decides something is diabolical first and asks questions later: hysteria, false accusations, needless violence. Calling an exhibit on witch hunts Satanic is not a rebuttal. It is a live demonstration. The museum should consider charging a consulting fee.

He also claimed to speak for Christian students. That is his assertion, and the students are not the subject of this ticket; the adults are. If anyone preferred to skip one stop on a draft itinerary, it was a draft. Nobody needed a lone dissent to protect them from a placard about witch trials.

Now the good news, which Management has asked us to report as bad news. The rest of the board approved the trip. A parent turned the controversy into a fundraiser. A museum whose business is explaining fear answered it with free admission, and the ticket money can now help students who could not otherwise go. One vote tried to keep teenagers away from history; the result is that more of them can afford it. Management calls this a service disruption. We call it Tuesday.

What the record shows

It helps to look at what the product manual actually says on this subject. Here is the official witch policy, in its entirety: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. (Exodus 22:18, KJV). That is the whole clause. No appendix on due process, no section on evidence, no FAQ for when the accused is simply an unpopular neighbor. A museum that documents what happens when communities enforce rules like that is not promoting the occult. It is filing the incident report. We would know; this is our line of work.

Labeling things Satanic to keep them away from young people is not new. In 2019, as NBC News reported, a Catholic school in Nashville pulled Harry Potter books from its library after its pastor consulted exorcists, citing the risk that the books’ spells could conjure evil spirits. We have reviewed the books. No spirits were conjured. Several children did learn to read longer novels, which we assume was the real danger.

Government bodies have a track record here too. In February 2016, according to The Christian Science Monitor, the Phoenix City Council voted to replace the prayer before its meetings with a moment of silence, a move intended to block our favorite neighbors at The Satanic Temple from offering a prayer at a later meeting. When officials let the word Satanic drive public business, the business gets rearranged around one group’s discomfort.

The line between personal faith and public office is well documented. In Engel v. Vitale (1962), per United States Courts, the Supreme Court ruled that government-written prayer in public schools violates the First Amendment, even when participation is voluntary. That case concerns prayer, not field trips, and Hellpdesk is not claiming one vote broke the Constitution. The principle still applies: a public school is not a venue for an official’s religious instruction, in either direction. A guess about divine frowning is not a policy rationale. It is a sermon note.

Finally, the receipt from the case itself, logged in our own library at friendlyatheist.com: free tickets after one board member’s objection. The objection went in. The tickets came out free.

Ticket closed. Resolution: one vote against history, every senior admitted free, fundraiser redirected to students who need it. 🎫 Management has asked to be notified of the next pastor who wants to fight a museum, so we can lose more efficiently.

🧾 Receipts

1. Friendly Atheist: Salem Witch Museum to give Batavia High students free tickets after pastor’s objection (opens in a new tab) (News, 2026-10-16)
2. NBC News: Harry Potter books taken off shelves at Catholic school over risk of 'conjuring evil spirits' (opens in a new tab)
3. The Christian Science Monitor: How Satanic Temple drove Phoenix City Council to drop opening prayers (opens in a new tab)
4. United States Courts: Facts and Case Summary - Engel v. Vitale (opens in a new tab)

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