The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly was considering eliminating invocations from meetings altogether… but they ultimately decided to allow anyone who wanted to give one to do so. And you know what that means…

Say hello to the Satanists!

Earlier this week, Iris Fontana of The Satanic Temple led an invocation that had people reeling…

Hello everyone, thank you for having me. Let us stand now, unbowed and unfettered by arcane doctrines, born of fearful minds in darkened times. Let us embrace the Luciferian impulse to eat of the tree of knowledge and dissipate our blissful and comforting delusions of old. Let us demand that individuals be judged for their concrete actions, not their fealty to arbitrary social norms and illusory categorizations. Let us reason our solutions with agnosticism in all things, holding fast only to that which is demonstrably true. Let us stand firm against any and all arbitrary authority that threatens the personal sovereignty of all or one. That which will not bend must break and that which can be destroyed by truth should never be spared its demise. It is done. Hail Satan. Thank you.

You know, if you take away that “Hail Satan” line, it’s actually a pretty wholesome generic invocation, don’t you think?

Some people didn’t see it that way:

Alaska Dispatch News reports that while most of the assembly members simply ignored Fontana’s invocation and continued their conversations, one assembly member walked out. Assemblyman Dale Bagley said, “I appreciate what the Assembly President’s doing with the prayer issue and trying to be fair, but I find it ironic that the prayer from the atheist wasn’t really about doing good and making good decisions. It was a political statement.”

Did Bagley even listen to the prayer? It was all about making good decisions. And by the way, Christian invocations are also political statements. They’re often explicit about God working through the government. That’s why getting rid of invocations is the better option.

Until that happens, though, expect to hear more invocations from non-traditional people. That’s what the Assembly invited when they opened up the floodgates.

(Thanks to Brian for the link)



