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Another Satanic invocation has been interrupted by a Christian who can’t handle hearing any religion but his own. And all the same characters we’ve seen before are involved.
A month ago, I posted about how Matt Dalbey, a member of the (non-theistic) Satanic Temple of Iowa, delivered an invocation in Ottumwa, Iowa. He ended it with the words “Hail Satan,” and as soon as he did, New Life Center Pastor Rick Bick ran up to the microphone and demanded the council “reverse the curse.”
Bick had no right to do that, something one council member pointed out. But Mayor Benjamin Foote decided to hold a 30-second moment of silence anyway, perhaps to split the difference and appease the Christian zealot. Foote later added that the Satanic invocation didn’t “represent the faith or the values of families who call this city home.”
But Dalbey had every right to be there. He signed up to deliver the invocations fair and square. And he was the speaker scheduled to deliver the prayer on Tuesday night. This time, however, the city was a little more prepared for his arrival. So were the protesters, as the Ottumwa Courier explained:
The highly anticipated return of Dalbey to the podium for his second invocation in a month Tuesday at City Hall saw TFP Student Action protesters in front of the building before and during the meeting decrying "socialism, satanism and LGBTQ ideology," as well as increased security from the Ottumwa Police Department and Ottumwa Fire Department.
They were protesting a neutral invocation policy that invites anyone to sign up to speak. That’s how insane these people are. They don’t even seem to get that Dalbey doesn’t believe in an actual Satan. (Christians do.)
Since Dalbey didn’t do anything wrong the first time, though, he gave another rousing speech that was uplifting and inspiring—and then he ended it with the sort of call-and-response that you tend to hear inside a church.
That’s when a different Christian took action.
Thank you, Mayor, Council.
I stand before you as a member of the Satanic Temple. I stand before you as a resident of Ottumwa, as an Iowa native, and as an American. I stand before you as an advocate for religious liberty, free expression, and pluralism.
If it should be that we agree on few things, let us agree that we are, each and all, free to hold differing convictions, and none among us may claim the authority to constrain freedom of thought, the fundamental right to develop, to hold, and to express, on equal terms, our deeply held beliefs. For even should [one’s beliefs] be formulated in error, correction cannot come from coercion. Force can overcome neither heart nor mind. And far greater an evil than a misguided inquirer is the tyranny of forced conformity and thoughtless acceptance of injustice.
In a time where sectarian divides are now increasingly invited to make themselves known in public forums, causing needless strife in diverse communities, let us celebrate our shared respect for individual dignity, personal sovereignty, and a unified uncompromising rejection of tyrannical authority.
If we agree on no other things, let us agree that each is their own master of their fate. And whatever ultimate power we claim to serve, let us never invest in ourselves the power to take that freedom from another. Our liberties we prize, and our rights we will maintain.
Hail Ottumwa. [Hail Ottumwa.]
Hail Iowa. [Hail Iowa.]
Hail the United States of America. [Hail the United States of America.]
Hail Satan. [Hail Satan.]
Hail Satan. [Hail Satan.]
Hail Satan. [Hail Satan.]
It is done.
When he said his first “Hail Satan,” though, a man in the audience identified by the Ottumwa Carrier as Live From America TV's Jeremy Herrell began shouting out the Lord’s Prayer to try and drown out Dalbey.
Dalbey finished anyway, but Herrell was allowed to interrupt until he was escorted out of there by the cops. The city council didn’t do anything to shut him up—nor did they apologize to Dalbey for their inaction.
Later in the meeting, council member Cara Galloway—who defended Dalbey’s rights last month and was the lone vote against the invocation policy earlier this year—once again urged her colleagues to replace these senseless invocations with a moment of silence. But no one else on the council agreed. They want to see these invocations continue because they don’t seem to give a damn that Christians are interfering with the lawful speeches given by non-Christians.
At least one community member used the public comment time to urge them all to reconsider:
Ottumwa resident Brad Payne said the change is needed.
“When my son Frank Jr. acts up, I take away his toys and I think it’s a time for us to take away the invocation toy,” Payne said.
However, another speaker, Matt Pringle, claimed Dalbey should be forbidden from giving future invocations because he broke the rules. Pringle said Dalbey’s previous prayer “disparaged people by… referring to them as fearfully minded” and wasn’t actually a “blessing” on the city since he “called for destruction and demise.”
Pringle got all that wrong.
Dalbey said in the beginning of last month’s speech, “Dear Dark Father, let us stand now unbowed and unfettered by arcane doctrines born of fearful minds in darkened times.” He wasn’t calling anyone in the room fearfully minded.
He closed his speech by saying, “That which will not bend must break, and that which can be destroyed by truth should never be spared its demise,” which is a call to embrace reality instead of lies. He was not calling for the destruction of the city.
Pringle clearly didn’t listen to the invocation. He just knew he hated it because he’s not a critical thinker. All the more reason Dalbey needs to keep speaking until the policy changes.
Lucien Greaves, spokesperson for The Satanic Temple, echoed those thoughts in a statement to me:
If one listens to the message Mr Dalbey delivered, one must wonder what exactly some found to be so horrific about his invocation. Was it the call to respect freedom of thought and individual dignity? Was it the appeal to personal sovereignty or the rejection of tyrannical authority?
Of course, it was only the "Hail Satan" at the end that they heard, demonstrating that their religious identities are nothing more than a team color, completely divorced from any coherent principles.
If being religious means having a well-defined sense of existential purpose, all we can say is that there was at least one religious person at last night's Ottumwa City Council meeting, and that person was Mr Dalbey.
Dalbey did not respond to a request for comment.
In any case, as I said before, the council should eliminate the invocation entirely and just do their damn jobs. Let people pray on their own time. Because there will be more Satanic invocations after this, and you can expect local Christians to whine about it and interrupt it every time it happens because these guys don’t understand how religious pluralism works.
If the council refuses to stop it, then they need to end the useless tradition.
Guy literally thought he was having a real wizard duel like he's at Hogwarts and thinks he won.
"America is a Christian Nation!!!"
Another bible-thumping yokel who is pig-ignorant of US history, the views of the Key Founders and the documents of governance.