Iowa city council meeting erupts after former member opens meeting with satanic prayer and 'Hail Satan'
A city council in Iowa erupted after a resident opened a meeting with a satanic prayer Tuesday.
Before the meeting of the Ottumwa City Council began, former council member Matt Dalbey opened with an invocation to the "dark father" to "embrace the Luciferian impulse to eat from the tree of knowledge" before ending with a "Hail Satan" declaration.
After the council recited the Pledge of Allegiance and took roll, New Life Center Pastor Rick Bick interrupted the meeting to demand pushback against Dalbey's invocation.
"Let's just reverse this curse that was put on our city. That ending with 'Hail Satan' or 'Hail dark god,' that's not welcome here," Bick insisted.
Though City Council member Cara Galloway told Bick to save his comments for public discussion, Bick demanded immediate action.
"It needs to be done now," Bick said. "I appreciate what Ms. Galloway is saying, but that was a curse put on the city. When he said 'Hail Satan' ... most of you know that, and we need to just stop and reverse it."
In response, Ottumwa Mayor Benjamin Foote requested 30 seconds of silence to allow for prayer or reflection and overruled Galloway's efforts to move forward with the meeting.
Reacting to the controversy, Foote told Fox News Digital, "This is not a reflection of our community. As the mayor of my hometown in Iowa, I know the people of Ottumwa, and the invocation read at the start of Tuesday’s meeting does not represent the faith or the values of families who call this city home."
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After the meeting concluded, Galloway gave additional comments on the matter, repeating past concerns she had about establishing invocations at city council meetings that could lead to more conflicts.
"Opening with an invocation means allowing viewpoints that may not reflect our own, and responding to someone's invocation is a slippery slope to putting a financial liability on the taxpayers and allowing for others to object or respond," Galloway said.
"And this is exactly why I had concerns about having an invocation when we first talked about it. And I think I even specifically referenced that having someone from the Church of Satan or a prayer about Satan when we talked about that, that this could happen, and we would need to allow it.
"I just want to remind us thatm again, sometimes things are said that we may not agree with ... and while you're allowed to do the moment of silence and that kind of thing too, I think we've opened ourselves up for others to object or respond to others' invocations," she continued.
"And we need to remember that we are up here to be neutral and allow viewpoints because we've opened up invocations."
According to a report by The Ottumwa Courier, the city adopted an invocation policy in January. The policy says it does not endorse any faith or religious denomination but is intended "to acknowledge and express the City Council's respect for the diversity of both organized and unorganized religious denominations, as well as other faiths, belief systems, or the lack thereof, represented and practiced among the citizens of the City of Ottumwa."
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In a private message, according to the Ottumwa Courier, Dalbey, who is a member of The Satanic Temple of Iowa, said that the prayer is commonly used by the temple "but has nothing to do with the belief in a satanic deity."
In a comment to Fox News Digital, council member Bill Hoffman described leaving the room once the prayer was invoked and returning for the Pledge of Allegiance, though he defended Dalbey's right to say what he believes.
"I'm a Christian man with Christian values. That doesn't mean I don't want to observe his First Amendment right. It just means that I want to use my rights not to observe that," he said.
Hoffman added that he expects the invocation policy to be discussed in the future and that the council did not condone the content.