Oklahoma Republicans are flipping out over a Pagan invocation in Tulsa
Amy Hardy-McAdams' prayer invoked Medusa, the “Gorgon Goddess,” and the Awen
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A non-Christian delivered an invocation prayer at a meeting of the Tulsa City Council in Oklahoma, and Republicans are losing their minds over it.
Last Wednesday, Amy Hardy-McAdams, co-owner and creator of the Strawberry Moon Herbal Apothecary & Ritual Center in Broken Arrow, was invited to give the opening prayer. Like Christians do all the time, she used the opportunity to speak about her faith (to “represent the pagan and witchcraft communities of Tulsa”). She also encouraged local leaders to look out for the “oppressed and abused,” go after injustice, and “be champions for all in this city.” An uplifting, inspiring message!
The only thing that was unusual was that, instead of citing Jesus, she referenced Medusa, the “Gorgon Goddess,” and the Awen.
As a Priestess of the Goddess, I invoke the Gorgonaea, champions of equality and sacred rage. I call to Medusa, monstrous hero of the oppressed and abused. I open the Eye of Medusa, the stare that petrifies injustice.
I call upon the serpent that rises from this land to face the Stars, the movement of wisdom unbound.
May these leaders find within themselves the Embodied Divine, the sacred essence of the spark of the Universe and the breath of the Awen.
Place in the hands of these leaders the sacred work of protecting the sovereignty and autonomy of all our people.
Gorgon Goddess, make them ready and willing to be champions for all in this city, not just those in power.
Shine a light for them, that they may walk the path of justice, protected and prepared, illuminating the darkness.
Endow them with the fire of courage, the waters of compassion, the air of truth, and the strength of the earth itself.
As Above, so below.
As within, so without.
As the universe, so the soul.
May there be peace among you all.
And so it is.
It’s the sort of invocation you would expect from someone who describes herself as “a Third-Degree High Priestess of the Artemisian Faerie Faith Tradition of Witchcraft.”
Hardy-McAdams didn’t just show up out of nowhere. She was actually invited to deliver the invocation by Crista Patrick, a city council member since 2018 who decided not to run for re-election after three successful campaigns. This was her last meeting and, as a Pagan herself, she wanted to invite someone who represented her views given that most of the recent prayers have been Christian in nature.
It shouldn’t have been an issue. After all, there was nothing in the invocation that was demeaning or pointless. Besides the use of unfamiliar references, it echoed themes of kindness, inclusivity, and and respect for all.
And as regular readers know by now, the Supreme Court has made clear that if invocations are part of city council meetings, there can be no discrimination on the basis of faith. Once that door is opened, everyone must be allowed in. In fact, Patrick told me over the phone that none of her colleagues on the city council said anything negative to her about the Pagan invocation in the immediate aftermath of the meeting (or earlier when the agenda was being prepared).
But because this invocation wasn’t Christian, the backlash was fierce.
On Saturday, the right-wing X/Twitter account TheOklahomaLion shared the invocation—or, as he described it, “what some are calling a ‘satanic prayer’”—while attributing Hardy-McAdams’ presence to an “unnamed Tulsa City Council Member.”
(It wasn’t Satanic and the council member is known.)
From there, the most conservative politicians in Oklahoma took their cue and quickly denounced the non-Christian prayer.
Gov. Kevin Stitt said “Satan is trying to establish a foothold” in the state while demanding the city council “stand strong against actions like this.”
What actions did he want the council to oppose? Respecting the First Amendment? Allowing non-Christians to speak?
As for “who allowed this,” it’s literally everyone who’s ever served in office and took an oath to the Constitution. In theory, that would include Stitt himself. But he wants to punish, via the ballot box, everyone who decided they didn’t want to face a lawsuit by discriminating against a Pagan speaker.
Naturally, Ryan Walters, the Christian Nationalist State Superintendent of Public Instruction, weighed in too. (You knew he wasn’t going to let this slide.) Walters said these “Satanic prayers” (they’re not Satanic) are “welcome in Hell but not in Oklahoma,” which is a very blunt way to suggest theocratic rule.
He added that council members “should immediately move to ensure this never happens again and the person who allowed it should be held accountable.”
The person “who allowed it” was a council member who won’t be there next month, but there’s no way to “ensure this never happens again” because what happened was legal. It was a direct consequence of allowing invocations in the first place. Anyone who wants to speak can make the request. The city’s website tells anyone interested to simply contact them. And if he wants accountability, he ought to be going after the Christian council members, not just the lone Pagan one, since they knew and allowed this to happen because that’s how the law works.
Not every Oklahoma Republican took the same approach. Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who’s been a surprising champion of church/state separation during his term and opposed the taxpayer-funded Catholic charter school that Ryan Walters endorsed, found a way to defend the invocation… while also trashing the non-Christian nature of the prayer. (Because an Oklahoma Republican is still an Oklahoma Republican.)
He wrote that if Stitt and Walters had their way, the Pagan Priestess could “have her own religious school—funded by your tax dollars!”
I suppose he gets credit for having the right overall message even if he’s being an asshole about it by using her Paganism as a weapon (“sacrilege”!) to scare Christian citizens into respecting the law. Telling people to oppose taxpayer-funded religious schools because—oh no!—Muslims and Hindus might take advantage of it would be equally trashy on his part.
You know how you can tell all of this outrage is performative? Because this isn’t the first time Amy Hardy-McAdams has spoken in front of the council. She delivered a similar invocation in June of 2021, also at Patrick’s request. But because no one seems to have noticed (or made a big deal about it), Republicans didn’t care. No one was harmed in the making of that invocation. It didn’t make any waves at the time.
No one was seriously affected by the recent invocation, either, but outrage is currency in the Republican Party and pretending to be a champion of conservative Christianity, at the expense of all non-Christian traditions, is the only way to get ahead in a political tribe that doesn’t give a damn about anyone outside their community.
Hilariously, in response to the invocation, one random Facebook commenter called for Patrick’s removal from the city council “along with ALL SATANIC PRAYERS in our government.” When he was told that this was Patrick’s final meeting, he responded, “I wonder if it’s been going on for 6 years and we just now know it.”
Yeah, buddy. It has been, and you never cared until this moment because conservatives decided to make it an issue and you fell for it…
If the Tulsa City Council wants to end this controversy of their own making, all they have to do is eliminate the invocations entirely. But Crista Patrick told me yesterday that there were no plans in the works to do that, as far as she knew. She also reiterated that if you allow one religious representative to speak, “you must allow all.” (To that point, Patrick works with the Tulsa Metropolitan Ministry. Slogan: “We don't have to believe alike to love alike!”)
As far as the backlash goes, she was just disappointed, saying, “It saddens me that this is being misrepresented” and that she hoped the criticism wouldn’t cause any harm to anyone involved. She’s always been pretty open about her alternative beliefs and said her religion has “never been a thing” among her colleagues, but this time, it seemed to break through in a way she’s not used to seeing. Republicans have essentially created a fire and they’re now throwing fuel on it.
When I spoke to Amy Hardy-McAdams, she was actually surprised by how outraged people are. She hadn’t seen any of the backlash until someone close to her pointed it out because she doesn’t pay much attention to social media. “I didn't even know there was video,” she told me over the phone.
Part of the reason she didn’t know about the outrage was that her name was never invoked. It wasn’t mentioned in the tweets and even the city council member who introduced her got her name wrong. Also, it’s not like there was any outrage in 2021—”None, zero,” she said, referring to backlash after her first invocation—so she wasn’t expecting any this time. But she told me why she was glad to represent the Pagan community with this prayer: “Because we have the right to. Because we're equal citizens. We don't want to become outlawed, or illegal, or allowed to be victimized." And if we have those rights, she said, we should make use of them.
As for AG Drummond’s half-hearted defense of what she did, she laughed it off. "Sacrilege is in the eye of the beholder," she explained, adding that Ryan Walters wants to force bibles in public schools and that’s sacrilegious to her.
Ultimately, she hopes people recognize the underlying message in what she said and that others will follow suit wherever they live because they have every right to do it:
"It's important to publicly and visibly stand up for those rights in a non-threatening way,” she explained, “because we need to be seen as valuable, equal, natural parts of the community.”
"these “Satanic prayers are welcome in Hell but not in Oklahoma”
There's a difference?
"Satan is trying to establish a foothold, but Oklahoma is going to be a shining city on the hill."
Pagans didn't invent Satan, Shitt. He's the creation of Judaism/Christianity. Shining city on the hill? Your state is ranked 43rd as "Best State to Live In." It is ranked next to last in Education (which is obvious) and next to last in Health Care. Seems Oklahoma is a shining city on a dunghill.