Posted on 02/02/2016 6:23:06 AM PST by Morgana
PHOENIX (ChurchMilitant.com) - Members of the Phoenix City Council are blocking a satanist group from performing an invocation at a council meeting this month.
Four councilmen are seeking to enact an emergency ruling forbidding representatives from the Satanic Temple of Tucson, Arizona from delivering a prayer at the beginning of the February 17 city council meeting.
Current rules allow any organization to call the city clerk's office and choose a date to act as the prayer leaders for that particular meeting. City Manager Ed Zuercher has stated the proposed changes, set as an agenda item for next Wednesday's meeting, would hand over the selection process to the mayor and the eight council members; they would then select a prayer leader from a rotating schedule.
The new rule, effective within 24 hours as part of an emergency clause, would revoke the invitation of the satanists.
The satanists, who claim that while they are a religion they do not worship the devil, have asserted they will seek legal action if not permitted to pray. "If [the members of the council] want to commit a constitutional violation, we will respond in turn," affirmed Stu De Haan, the leader of the local chapter of the Satanic Temple. "This is clearly discriminatory and targeting one group."
The organization claims it's acting as representatives of "religious liberty and democratic plurality."
But according to councilman Sal DiCiccio, allowing the satanists to deliver the invocation is going to make "a mockery of everything."
"[T]hey want to mock the City of Phoenix, the taxpayers and the people who want to take this stuff seriously," he told a local news station.
Jim Waring, another one of the four councilmen attempting to block the satanists, contends there has been an outpouring of people "trying to get us to get rid of the invocation."
Not everyone within the Phoenix government is for rejecting the Satanic Temple, however, with the city's mayor Greg Stanton throwing his support behind the satanists, noting that the Constitution "demands equal treatment under the law."
"I strongly disagree with this group's message," Stanton said in a statement issued last week. "However, the First Amendment protects free speech. As offensive as that message may be, the Constitution demands equal treatment under the law."
According to Brad Holm, the attorney for the City of Phoenix, the "city cannot dictate religious viewpoints or the content of a prayer," and additionally "government may not exclude a denomination or a religion from praying under these circumstances."
Dianne Post, an attorney and self-proclaimed humanist, asserted that if "you allow God in the building, you have to allow the devil in the building." Post became the first non-religious individual permitted to offer the pre-meeting prayer when she delivered a secular address last month.
A U.S. Supreme Court ruling from 2014 ruled that government bodies that allow prayer before assemblies must "let in everybody." The case has also been used by opponents of public prayer to eliminate the practice in favor of a moment of silence instead.
In December, the Satanic Temple of Detroit organized a ceremony outside the Michigan capitol in Lansing in what is described as the country's "first state-sanctioned satanic ceremony in history."
Satanists who don’t worship Satan.
Sure......
Sooooo what exactly are they praying to?
yeah, no.
Satan worship at public functions isn’t banned by the constitution because they NEVER THOUGH WE’D GO THIS B.....T CRAZY!!!!!!
You have a right to worship whatever you believe but that does not mean you will be invited.
The god of lies?
The word “discrimination” has developed such negative connotations. Yet to be discriminating and make value judgments is the hallmark of intelligence.
-According to Brad Holm, the attorney for the City of Phoenix, the “city cannot dictate religious viewpoints or the content of a prayer,” and additionally “government may not exclude a denomination or a religion from praying under these circumstances.”-
I have seen this before. I have a sneaking suspicion the whole intent is to stop Christian prayer. They hope that the only way to stop satanic prayer is to stop any and all. Just another way to remove God from something........anything they can. And I know where that comes from.
They should be put in a room full of muslims.
I don’t think they are under any obligation to tell the truth so I would say Satan.
But they could just be Anti-Christian Contrarians.
I keep trying to tell people that the Satanic Temple founds are just two atheist nerds who are trying make a mockery of religion and have found a way to get donations to support their lazy non-employed a$$e$. They don’t even use their real names; they hide behind fake ones:
http://www.vice.com/read/unmasking-lucien-greaves-aka-doug-mesner-leader-of-the-satanic-temple
"The Satanic Temple was actually conceived of independent from me by a friend and one of his colleagues. They envisioned it more as a “poison pill†in the Church/State debate. The idea was that Satanists, asserting their rights and privileges where religious agendas have been successful in imposing themselves upon public affairs, could serve as a poignant reminder that such privileges are for everybody, and can be used to serve an agenda beyond the current narrow understanding of what “the†religious agenda is. So at the inception, the political message was primary, though it was understood that there are, in fact, self-identified Satanists who live productive lives within the boundaries of the law, and that they do deserve just as much consideration as any other religious group. I was brought in originally as a consultant due to my expertise in the history of witch hunts and my understanding regarding conceptions of Satanism. While the original thinking was that the Satanic Temple needed to hold to some belief in a supernatural entity known as “Satan,†none of us truly believed that. I helped develop us into something we all do truly believe in and wholeheartedly embrace: an atheistic philosophical framework that views “Satan†as a metaphorical construct by which we contextualize our works. We’ve moved well beyond being a simple political ploy and into being a very sincere movement that seeks to separate religion from superstition and to contribute positively to our cultural dialogue. To this end, I am very much an activist."
See posts # 10 and # 11. You are correct. The founders don’t really believe in Satan. They’re simply trolls who hate God and like to annoy Christians be ause they will turn the other cheek. They are chicken$hit$ who would never try this on Muslims who would kill them for it.
God will not be mocked.
There are a lot of satanic denominations and they bear a strong resemblance to the democrat party.
Go ahead and allow them to pray to Satan who may answer them. It’s their constitutional right. It doesn’t mean I can’t laugh at them just the same.
Yes!
And we also “discriminate” against child rapists and murderers!
You gotta problem with that?
That is a flat out falsehood.
The Constitution demands that the government keep its hands off matters of religion. The Constitution does not allow Congress to make any law respecting the establishment of a religion, nor the free exercise thereof.
The Satanists are free to do as they please but they do not have a Constitutionally protected right to deliver an invocation at a City Council meeting. That decision is up to the City Council and thus, the people who inhabit the city.
Maybe they're dyslexic and sold their souls to Santa.
Maybe they like wearing Satin.
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