Apple tells Satanists they can't "Think different"

Here's an intellectual rebel who apparently won't be the next poster boy for Apple Computer's "Think different" ad campaign: America's late, leading Satanist.

Apple Computer, which gained fame with its iconoclastic marketing, has told the Church of Satan it does not want to be associated with it, the group said.

The "Think different" slogan had until recently adorned a picture of Church of Satan founder Anton Szandor LaVey, on the group's Web site, but was pulled along with a "Made with Macintosh" Web badge at the request of the computer company, the group said.

LaVey, a former circus lion tamer, founded the San Francisco-based church in 1967, earning the diabolical nickname "Black Pope" by doing everything from officiating a Satanic wedding to playing Satan in Roman Polanski's film, "Rosemary's Baby."

Webmaster Peter Gilmore, who also serves as "High Priest" for the group, built the site on a Macintosh but said he abandoned all hope for using the trademark in February after a lengthy exchange with Apple's lawyers.

An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment in any way on the matter.

Apple has styled itself as the rebel of the computer industry and its famed "Big Brother" television ad introduced the Macintosh computer in 1984 with a striking image of a woman throwing a hammer at a giant Orwellian face.

More recently Apple's "Think different" print campaign has featured pictures of revolutionaries from physicist Albert Einstein to civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

The Church of Satan said its own views made its goateed founder, who died in 1997, a perfect pitchman.

"Satan" in Hebrew means one who opposes, and the Church of Satan is meant to bring together free thinkers, the church said on its Web site."Is it that we 'think too different' for your client?" Gilmore asked Apple's lawyers in correspondence posted on the site.

"I guess Apple didn't like the idea that somebody called the Church of Satan's support was a good thing," Gilmore said. "It's really discrimination."

Apple had reserved the right to stop use of its trademarks on Web pages in poor taste or disparaging to Apple, according to the letter he attributed to the company's lawyers.

The company did not specify what it objected to on the site, but the small group could not afford an expensive court battle with the big software company, Gilmore said.

"This exchange has definitely soured us on some of the taste of Apple," Gilmore wrote.

He also said Apple had a bit of the devil in it, interpreting the bite taken out of the Apple trademark as a reference to the Biblical story of the first bite from the fruit of knowledge in the Garden of Eden, proffered by an incarnation of the devil.

"They want to dance, but their feet won't let them," Gilmore said, quoting an earlier LaVey remark.