Four members of the Phoenix City Council moved late Friday to block a Satanist group from delivering the traditional prayer before a council meeting next month. Members of the Satanic Temple of Tucson are scheduled to deliver the invocation Feb. 17. Group leaders say they are a religion but they do not worship the devil. City Manager Ed Zuercher said in a statement Friday night that, at the council members’ request, he would add an agenda item for next Wednesday’s meeting that would change the way the city schedules groups that lead the prayer. The current system allows groups to call the city clerk’s office to schedule a date. The new system would mimic what the state legislature does: The mayor and eight council members would select the prayer leader on a rotating basis. The four council members — Jim Waring; Sal DiCiccio; Bill Gates; and Michael Nowakowski — want the new rule adopted with an emergency clause, allowing it to take effect within 24 hours. Waring told 12 News that the Satanists would then be disinvited.
The problem with mixing religion and politics is the idea of drawing a line- more importantly, WHO gets to draw that line and determine the criteria for doing so. When you blur the separation of Church and State- even for something as seemingly simple and innocuous as allowing a prayer before a city council meeting, you open a Pandora’s Box of unforeseen reactions and consequences. And, no, your beliefs- despite being The One, True, and ONLY Faith ©- don’t qualify you to decide what religious rituals all of us are to be subjected to.
In this case, it would be easy to conclude that the four council members in question are all for religious freedom…as long as it’s religious expression that dovetails with their beliefs and prejudices. Put more simply: Christians good, everyone else bad. This is all well and good until you run across someone who happens not to profess the majority religion, yet has the temerity to believe that freedom of religion should apply to them per the Constitution. Silly wabbit; do they not know that America’s a CHRISTIAN nation and that ONLY followers of Jesus Christ who’ve been washed in the blood of the Lamb (sorry for the gory visual imagery) get to claim the protections of the 1st Amendment?
A Satanist? Praying before a city council meeting? Why, how dare they believe they have the same God-given rights we Christians assume as our birthright? How dare they spread their hatred of the baby Jesus? What about our poor, impressionable children- you know, the ones we’re so heavily invested in indoctrinating into unquestioning acceptance of our sincerely-held religious beliefs? What about THAT freedom of religion??
‘Course, that there’s a very basic and glaring violation of the Constitution in play here seems not to matter in the slightest to those good, God-fearing Christians who appear to believe “freedom of religion” is applicable only to those like themselves, anointed followers of Jesus Christ.
“If they want to commit a constitutional violation, we will respond in turn,” said Stu De Haan, a Tucson criminal defense lawyer who is a leader of the Satanic Temple chapter. “We have people everywhere (in each council district), and we’ll adjust.”
“This is clearly discriminatory and targeting one group,” he said.
You’d think that people who’ve taken an oath to uphold the Constitution would actually know (and, more importantly, understand) the language within said Constitution. Nowhere is it stated (or even implied) that the freedoms it guarantees (speech, expression, religion, etc.) apply only to those who’ve accepted Jesus Christ as their personal boy toy home boy savior.
Disinviting the Satanists absolutely represents a clear constitutional violation, never mind being a clear statement by the city council that some citizens are to be considered less equal than others, and that religious belief is an acceptable means of discrimination. Remember, if you ain’t got Jesus, you ain’t $#!&.
A U.S. Supreme Court ruling two years ago requires government bodies that have prayers before meetings to “let in everybody,” said Dianne Post, an attorney and humanist who was the first non-religious speaker at a council meeting, last February.
“If you allow God in the building, you have to allow the devil in the building,” she said Friday, before word that the council members would attempt to overhaul the prayer rules. “The First Amendment says you cannot favor one church over another church, or a religion over a non-religion.”
Yet the Phoenix City Council is attempting to do exactly that. Unfortunately for them, per the Supreme Court, you don’t get to pick and choose which expressions of religious faith are acceptable and which are beyond the pale. “If you allow God in the building, you have to allow the devil in the building,” and if the city council continues to pursue their current path, their exposing their constituents to the mother of all lawsuits.
The Phoenix City Council- indeed ANY governmental body- represents ALL its constituents- not just those who happen to follow the majority religion. Cross that line without looking back, and its a very short trip to the very sort of religious tyranny so many Christians claim to fear with every fiber of their beings.
Ah, but I keep forgetting one very important detail, right? It’s NOT tyranny if you’re the one doing the oppressing; it’s only when others do it to you that it can be considered tyrannical, no??
