'It Is Done. Hail Satan:' City Immediately Regrets New Religious Liberty Law That Allows Prayer at City Council Meeting
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Iowa city council debates proper time in meeting agenda to "undo the curse that was just put on our city."

Iowa city council debates proper time in meeting agenda to “undo the curse that was just put on our city.”

An Iowa man has kicked off controversy over religious freedom in the small town of Ottumwa, Iowa by opening a city council meeting with a prayer to Satan, which then kicked off a debate about the proper time in the meeting agenda to undo the “curse.”

  • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
    411·
    20 hours ago

    So I actually think that the government officials did about as well as they could here.
    They let the person make their statement, and then someone not in the government interrupted to say they had to “undo the curse”. Official said that wasn’t in the agenda, and then the mayor said they would just pause for 30 seconds to reflect before moving on to keep things from getting off the rails.

    Galloway spent the moment of silence with her head up and her arms crossed. An hour later, she spoke up. “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 others to object or respond. This is exactly why I had concerns about having an invocation when we first talked about it.”

    • Tower@lemmy.zip
      4·
      18 hours ago

      Agreed. Build the 30 seconds into future agendas. Have the religious piece (whatever it may be), then 30 seconds of silence for anyone who needs the time to get their jimmies unrustled, then move on.

      Or, even better, just have the 30 seconds and tell everyone they’re invited to silently issue any invocation they want during that time, then they’re moving on to actual city business. Hell, let’s bump it up to a full minute, just to be extra nice.