When we started up a gaming group at lunch time in school, we hadn't been running for more than a month or so when some kids parent threw a fit. Complained to the principle that we were doing satanism and witchcraft and whatever else. Thankfully, one of our teachers had gamed in college - he still had the Moldvay basic sets, we later learned. He went to bat for us with the principle. In the end, the principle and two teachers watched us play every day for a week. In the end, they concluded that there was nothing evil going on - actually I think we bored them stupid.
But even with that, we had to agree to not let the kid who's parent threw a fit play, and we had to do it in the library store room, where nobody could see us play. Which actually ended up giving us a bit of mystique, I think, because normally nobody was allowed in there without a teacher. But even still, it was fucking stupid. And outside of school, we basically couldn't interact with that kid anymore. His parents would never let us go to his house, he could never go to ours, never go with us to movies, nothing.
I learned years later that my own mother didn't want me playing, but my dad wouldn't let her stop me - my dad was rabidly pro-reading, and basically viewed anything involving reading books as good. Bless him. But suddenly the fact she aways made derogatory comments about it whenever I got a new book or something made more sense. And I was told not to bring it up with my family.
I know, it's just anecdotes. But I was there, I experienced that shit, and I've got no patience for people who want to try to memory hole it.
I won’t discount your experience; just point out that said experience was extremely regional as, in my neck of the woods it was my priest who defended one of my friends from his harridan mother (someone easily recognized today as a Karen) who insisted D&D was a devil worship kit.*
And that was MY experience with the whole deal. It wasn’t the churches (outside of Jack Chick and he said everything, including my Church, was satanic) that were going after D&D… it was the Karens of the day who attended the churches (and invariably jumped from one to the next as each pastor offended her in turn by failing to agree with whatever her interpretation of “Christianity” was) who pushed the matter.
Yeah, but... It doesn't matter if it was being done by the shepherd or the flock. That's irrelevant. It was done in the name of the religion, which motivated other people who may not have actually gave two shits to join in, because of some ignorant sense of piety or holier-than-thou bullshit.
Blaming actual Christianity and Christian churches for the Satanic Panic from my experience is like blaming a homeowner for the chaos caused by a drunken party crasher at an open house. The Karens behind the Satanic Panic were no more “Christian” than Judas or Simon the Magician.
But it wasn't
just Karens. And it wasn't *just* D&D, either, although that tends to be one of the things people remember the most... For a while, it was all sorts of things. Churches would actually have those fucking Chick strip pamphlets. Television preachers would preach against whatever cultural trend annoyed or scared them. And if it wasn't D&D, it was comic books, or video games, or rock and roll music - and everyone had that one aunt or grandparent or something that would get them Christian versions of something. "I know you like music, so here's Godworshipers on Tour!", or whatever. Or know the couple of kids in school who's parents only let them have Christian media. And parents didn't just spontaneously decide Aerosmith or The X-Men were satanic. They were
told that by "trusted religious Authorities".
So no, sorry, it's not that easy to dismiss what happened .