The US Supreme Court decision in Greece v. Galloway was a bit confused but seemed to suggest that it was acceptable for government entities to open their meetings with a prayer as long as the opportunity for offering prayers was made without discriminatory intent And not limited to just those views that promoted one particular viewpoint.



Non religious groups have taken this opportunity to offer invocations of various sort. The effort by the Satanists to do so has caused consternation in Phoenix, Arizona with a city council member saying, “We weren’t comfortable lending either our reputations — or the constituency that voted for us, we didn’t want them to think that we were [allowing] a Satanic prayer at a City Council meeting”.

They have tried to block it by passing a resolution that said that a elected officials had to offer an invitation to a group before it could offer a prayer. The Satanic Temple has threatened a lawsuit if they go ahead with this plan, with is spokeseperson saying “[I]t’s hilarious and disheartening at the same time to see such a level of Constitutional ignorance revealed in acting public officials,”

As the Temple members say, this is what ‘Religious Liberty’, the slogan used by religious people to muscle their way into the public sphere, looks like. If you open up the public sphere for one religious voice, you have to open it up for all.