‘It Is Done. Hail Satan:’ City Immediately Regrets New Religious Liberty Law That Allows Prayer at City Council Meeting
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.”
On Tuesday night, Ottumwa resident, satanist, and former city council member Matt Dalbey took the podium to read an invocation to start a routine meeting of the council. “Thank you mayor, council. Let us pray,” Dalbey started. “Dear dark father, let us stand now unbowed and unfettered by arcane doctrines born of fearful minds and darkened times. Let us embrace the Luciferan impulse to eat off the tree of knowledge and dissipate our blissful and comforting delusions of old.”
The prayer is a common one used by the Satanic Temple of Iowa. “Let us demand that individuals be judged for their concrete actions, not for their fealty to arbitrary social norms and illusory categorizations,” he continued. “Let us reason our solutions with agnosticism in all things, holding fast only to that which is demonstrably true. Let us stand firm against any and all arbitrary authority that threatens the personal sovereignty of one or all. That which will not bend must break. And that which can be destroyed by truth should never be spared its demise.”“It is done. Hail Satan,” he finished.
Another citizen, a pastor named Rick Bick, rushed to the podium. “Let’s just reverse that curse that was just put on our city,” he said. “That ending with hail Satan and hail dark god. That’s not welcome here.”
“Mayor, that should be done at the end,” city councilor Cara Galloway said.
“It needs to be done now, OK.” Rick said. “I appreciate what Ms. Galloway is saying but that was a curse put on our city when he said ‘Hail Satan’ and the dark god and most of you know that. And we need to just stop and reverse it.”
“So what I’m gonna do now…I’m just gonna invite us into a 30 second time of prayer — time of silence.”
“No,” Galloway said. “We are at the consent agenda. I’m sorry, but it’s time to move forward. The invocation happened.”
“As mayor of this city…I’m going to ask right now that we do a moment of silence to reflect on whatever it is we need to reflect on at this time. And then we will move to the consent agenda,” mayor Benjamin Foote said.
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.”
Dalbey told 404 Media he was a sincere member of the Temple of Satan but stressed it’s “an organization of nontheists, people who don’t believe in any deities or supernatural beings.”
He served on the city council for eight years and has largely stayed out of local politics since leaving the council in 2021. But when the city council passed a new rule earlier this year that allowed city council meetings to start with religious invocations, he decided to do something. “I’m a constitutionalist,” he said. “And when I see this, the implication I got was that we were again starting to mix religion into the government.”
At the Tuesday night council meeting, the audience stood up to recite the Pledge of Allegiance the moment Dalbey finished.
Ottumwa has only been reading invocations at its meeting for a short time. The city council passed a resolution allowing the practice on January 20. Galloway was the only person on the council who voted against it. At the time, she said Satanists might show up and read a prayer and that everyone would have to be OK with that. Readers of 404 Media may remember Ottumwa, Iowa because it is the place we aired our Super Bowl commercial.
Anyone who wants to show up to read an invocation before a city council meeting needs to fill out an electronic form. The form asks applicants to list an organization they represent, but allows people to say “none.” Dalbey has signed up to read invocations three times this year. He’s listed as representing “none” each time on the schedule. He was supposed to read a prayer on September 1, but couldn’t make the meeting because of his work. He’s on the schedule to read an invocation on November 3rd. “I plan on being there in November, absolutely,” he said.
Dalbey said he’d be happy to see the invocation policy rescinded. “When I was on the council […] we were approached several times about doing an invocation, and the very reason that we didn’t was because our attorney had warned us that when you do, you open the door to any and all people who want to present. That’s the law,” he said.
The invocation to Satan in a small town in Iowa is just the latest salvo in a 10-year-long battle over religious freedom of expression in the state. In 2016, a religious liberty group installed a Christian nativity scene at the state capitol in Des Moines. Later that year a group of atheists installed its own nativity scene honoring the Bill of Rights. In 2023, The Satanic Temple put up a pentagram built from red ribbon and topped with a mirror-mask ram’s head that invoked Baphomet in the capitol rotunda. The group also began holding winter celebrations in the Rotunda. A man vandalized the display, police arrested him and charged him with a hate crime.
In 2024 — the same year Governor Kim Reynolds signed a state law meant to protect religious freedom — officials blocked Satanists from holding their winter celebration. The ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request looking for records about the incident and, earlier this year, sued Iowa on behalf of the Satanic Temple for violating federal free speech laws.
“I think we’re seeing you know a big shift in our politics. I think we’ve seen a rise of Christian nationalism in this country […] and I think it’s trying to grasp and get a hold of controlling our politics, our laws and our government, and I find that highly troubling,” Dalbey said. “And I think anytime we let any religion dominate our politics, we revert right back to where we were 250 years plus ago: a monarchy where the church ruled the country, and that was bad for everybody. That’s one of the reasons our founding fathers decided to form a new nation. And I think if we are not careful, you know, we’re going to slide right back into that scenario.”
You must log in or register to comment.
Local town meeting interrupted by man scared of witchcraft
Which religion has the longest prayer?
imagine bringing some muslim scholar to recite the koran from memory like a filibuster until someone stops him lmao
Bring a Muslim to filibuster, and then when they arrest him for going over the 2 minutes, you go after them for discrimination
The City Council makes it a policy to invite residents of the City of Ottumwa to voluntarily offer an invocation or prayer not to exceed two minutes in length before the beginning of its meetings.
They did think far enough ahead to stop that.
I finished reading the first one and was just thinking it took me longer than 2 minutes to read - how am I going to break it to poor Civility that you’ve gotta be really quick to get that all in under the time limit, and then I refresh and I’m only half way through.
“I would like to start by giving my thanks to the Goddess of Trans Women.”
how does the rest of this prayer go, let’s hear itThe great-hearted mistress, the impetuous lady, proud among the Anuna gods and pre-eminent in all lands, the great daughter of Suen, exalted among the Great Princes, the magnificent lady who gathers up the divine powers of heaven and earth and rivals great An, is mightiest among the great gods – she makes their verdicts final. The Anuna gods crawl before her august word whose course she does not let An know; he dares not proceed against her command. She …/changes her own action, and no one knows how it will occur. She makes perfect the great divine powers, she holds a shepherd’s crook, and she is their magnificent pre-eminent one. She is a huge shackle clamping down upon the gods of the Land. Her great awesomeness covers the great mountain and levels the roads.
At her loud cries, the gods of the Land become scared. Her roaring makes the Anuna gods tremble like a solitary reed. At her rumbling, they hide all together. Without Inana great An makes no decisions, and Enlil determines no destinies. Who opposes the mistress who raises her head and is supreme over the mountains? Wherever she …, cities become ruin mounds and haunted places, and shrines become waste land. When her wrath makes people tremble, the burning sensation and the distress she causes are like an ulu demon ensnaring a man.
She stirs confusion and chaos against those who are disobedient to her, speeding carnage and inciting the devastating flood, clothed in terrifying radiance. It is her game to speed conflict and battle, untiring, strapping on her sandals. Clothed (?) in a furious storm, a whirlwind, she … the garment of ladyship. When she touches … there is despair, a south wind which has covered … Inana sits on harnessed (?) lions, she cuts to pieces him who shows no respect. A leopard of the hills, entering (?) the roads, raging (?), …, the mistress is a great bull trusting in its strength; no one dare turn against her. …, the foremost among the Great Princes, a pitfall for the disobedient, a trap for the evil, a … for the hostile, wherever she casts her venom …
Her wrath is …, a devastating flood which no one can withstand. A great watercourse, …, she abases those whom she despises. The mistress, a hurin bird who lets no one escape, …, Inana, a falcon preying on the gods, Inana rips to pieces the spacious cattle-pens. The fields of the city which Inana has looked at in anger … The furrows of the field which the mistress … grass. An opposes her, … Setting on fire, in the high plain the mistress … Inana … The mistress … fighting, …, conflict …
… she performs a song. This song … its established plan, weeping, the food and milk of death. Whoever eats … Inana’s food and milk of death will not last. Gall will give a burning pain to those she gives it to eat, … in their mouth … In her joyful heart she performs the song of death on the plain. She performs the song of her heart. She washes their weapons with blood and gore, … Axes smash heads, spears penetrate and maces are covered in blood. Their evil mouths … the warriors … On their first offerings she pours blood, filling them with blood.
On the wide and silent plain, darkening the bright daylight, she turns midday into darkness. People look upon each other in anger, they look for combat. Their shouting disturbs the plain, it weighs on the pasture and the waste land. Her howling is like Ickur’s and makes the flesh of all the lands tremble. No one can oppose her murderous battle – who rivals her? No one can look at her fierce fighting, the carnage, the … Engulfing (?) water, raging, sweeping over the earth, she leaves nothing behind. The mistress, a breaking plough opening hard ground, … The braggarts do not lift their necks, … Her great heart performs her bidding, the mistress who alone fashions (?) … Exalted in the assembly, she occupies the seat of honour, … to the right and left.
Humbling huge mountains as if they were piles of litter, she immobilises … She brings about the destruction of the mountain lands from east to west. Inana … wall … gulgul stones, she obtains victory. She … the kalaga stone … as if it were an earthenware bowl, she makes it like sheep’s fat. The proud mistress holds a dagger in her hand, a radiance which covers the Land; her suspended net piles up fish in the deep, … As if she were a clever fowler no bird escapes the mesh of her suspended net. The place she has pulverised …, … the divine plans of heaven and earth. The intention of her word does not … to An. The context of her confusing advice in the great gods’ assembly is not known. 2 lines fragmentary
The mistress, a leopard among the Anuna gods, full of pride, has been given authority. Not having … struggle …, Inana … She … the adolescent girl in her chamber, receiving her, … heart … charms. She evilly … the woman she rejects. In the entire (?) country she … She lets her run around in the street … … of a house the wife sees her child.
When she had removed the great punishment from her body, she invoked blessings upon it; she caused it to be named the pilipili. She broke the spear and as if she were a man … gave her a weapon. When she had … punishment, it is not … She … the door of the house of wisdom, she makes known its interior. Those who do not respect her suspended net do not escape … when she suspends the meshes of her net. The man she has called by name she does not hold in esteem. Having approached the woman, she breaks the weapon and gives her a spear. The male jicgisajkec, the nisub and the female jicgi ritual officiants, after having … punishment, moaning … The ecstatic, the transformed pilipili, the kurjara and the sajursaj … Lament and song … They exhaust themselves with weeping and grief, they … laments.
Weeping daily your heart does not … ‘Alas’ … heart … knows no relaxation. Beloved lady of holy An, your … in weeping … In heaven … On your breast … You alone are majestic, you have renown, heaven and earth … not … You rival An and Enlil, you occupy their seat of honour. You are pre-eminent in the cult places, you are magnificent in your course.
Acnan … august dais … Ickur who roars from the sky … His thick clouds … When … the great divine powers of heaven and earth, Inana, your victory is terrifying … The Anuna gods bow down in prostration, they abase themselves. You ride on seven great beasts as you come forth from heaven. Great An feared your precinct and was frightened of your dwelling-place. He let you take a seat in the dwelling-place of great An and then feared you no more, saying: “I will hand over to you the august royal rites and the great divine rites.”
The great gods kissed the earth and prostrated themselves. The high mountain land, the land of cornelian and lapis lazuli, bowed down before you, but Ebih did not bow down before you and did not greet you. Shattering it in your anger, as desired, you smashed it like a storm. Lady, pre-eminent through the power of An and Enlil, … Without you no destiny at all is determined, no clever counsel is granted favour.
To run, to escape, to quiet and to pacify are yours, Inana. To rove around, to rush, to rise up, to fall down and to … a companion are yours, Inana. To open up roads and paths, a place of peace for the journey, a companion for the weak, are yours, Inana. To keep paths and ways in good order, to shatter earth and to make it firm are yours, Inana. To destroy, to build up, to tear out and to settle are yours, Inana. To turn a man into a woman and a woman into a man are yours, Inana. Desirability and arousal, goods and property are yours, Inana. Gain, profit, great wealth and greater wealth are yours, Inana. Gaining wealth and having success in wealth, financial loss and reduced wealth are yours, Inana. Observation (1 ms. has instead: Everything), choice, offering, inspection and approval are yours, Inana. Assigning virility, dignity, guardian angels, protective deities and cult centres are yours, Inana. 6 lines fragmentary
… mercy and pity are yours, Inana. … are yours, Inana. To cause the … heart to tremble, … illnesses are yours, Inana. To have a wife, …, to love … are yours, Inana. To rejoice, to control (?), … are yours, Inana. Neglect and care, raising and bowing down are yours, Inana. To build a house, to create a woman’s chamber, to possess implements, to kiss a child’s lips are yours, Inana. To run, to race, to desire and to succeed are yours, Inana. To interchange the brute and the strong and the weak and the powerless is yours, Inana. To interchange the heights and valleys and the … and the plains (?) is yours, Inana. To give the crown, the throne and the royal sceptre is yours, Inana.
To diminish, to make great, to make low, to make broad, to … and to give a lavish supply are yours, Inana. To bestow the divine and royal rites, to carry out the appropriate instructions, slander, untruthful words, abuse, to speak inimically and to overstate are yours, Inana.
my blessed QueenSo you are done with the emoji only bit then lmao
Very uncivil of you to point out that their not doing their bit
😔
Every now and then I think Civility has always been an emoji-only bit account and then:
- I remember that’s never been true
- I realize I’ve recently seen all sorts of Civility posts and don’t even remember they’re Civility posts because they weren’t just emojis
To turn a man into a woman and a woman into a man are yours, Inana.
First god I’ve considered getting on board with, congrats Inana. Now, can you make me neither?
The false or true response, the sneer, to commit violence, to extend derision, to speak with hostility, to cause smiling and to be humbled or important, misfortune, hardship, grief, to make happy, to clarify and to darken, agitation, terror, fear, splendour and great awesomeness in radiance, triumph, pursuit, imbasur illness, sleeplessness and restlessness, submission, gift, … and howling, strife, chaos, opposition, fighting and carnage, …, to know everything, to strengthen for the distant future a nest built …, to instill fear in the … desert like a … poisonous snake, to subdue the hostile enemy, … and to hate … are yours, Inana.
To … the lots …, to gather the dispersed people and restore them to their homes, to receive …, to … are yours, Inana.
… the runners, when you open your mouth, … turns into … At your glance a deaf man does not … to one who can hear. At your angry glare what is bright darkens; you turn midday into darkness. When the time had come you destroyed the place you had in your thoughts, you made the place tremble. Nothing can be compared to your purposes (?); who can oppose your great deeds? You are the lady of heaven and earth! Inana, in (?) the palace the unbribable judge, among the numerous people … decisions. The invocation of your name fills the mountains, An (?) cannot compete with your …
Your understanding … all the gods … You alone are magnificent. You are the great cow among the gods of heaven and earth, as many as there are. When you raise your eyes they pay heed to you, they wait for your word. The Anuna gods stand praying in the place where you dwell. Great awesomeness, glory … May your praise not cease! Where is your name not magnificent? 9 lines missing
Your song is grief, lament … Your … cannot be changed, your anger is crushing. Your creation cannot be …, An has not diminished your … orders. Woman, with the help of An and Enlil you (?) have granted … as a gift in the assembly. Unison … An and Enlil …, giving the Land into your hand. An does not answer the word you have uttered to him.
Once you have said ‘So be it’, great An does not … for him. Your ‘So be it’ is a ‘So be it’ of destruction, to destroy … Once you have said your … in the assembly, An and Enlil will not disperse it. Once you have made a decision …, it cannot be changed in heaven and earth. Once you have specified approval of a place, it experiences no destruction. Once you have specified destruction for a place, it experiences no approval.
Your divinity shines in the pure heavens like Nanna or Utu. Your torch lights up the corners of heaven, turning darkness into light. … with fire. Your … refining … walks like Utu in front of you. No one can lay a hand on your precious divine powers; all your divine powers … You exercise full ladyship over heaven and earth; you hold everything in your hand. Mistress, you are magnificent, no one can walk before you. You dwell with great An in the holy resting-place. Which god is like you in gathering together … in heaven and earth? You are magnificent, your name is praised, you alone are magnificent!
I am En-hedu-ana, the high priestess of the moon god. …; I am the … of Nanna.
Advice …, grief, bitterness …, ‘alas’ … My lady, … mercy … compassion … I am yours! This will always be so! May your heart be soothed towards me! May your understanding … compassion. May … in front of you, may it be my offering. Your divinity is resplendent in the Land! My body has experienced your great punishment. Lament, bitterness, sleeplessness, distress, separation …, mercy, compassion, care, lenience and homage are yours, and to cause flooding, to open hard ground and to turn darkness into light.
My lady, let me proclaim your magnificence in all lands, and your glory! Let me praise your ways and greatness! Who rivals you in divinity? Who can compare with your divine rites? May great An, whom you love, say for you “It is enough!”. May the great gods calm your mood. May the lapis lazuli dais, fit for ladyship, … May your magnificent dwelling place say to you: “Be seated”. May your pure bed say to you: “Relax”. Your …, where Utu rises, …
They proclaim your magnificence; you are the lady … An and Enlil have determined a great destiny for you throughout the entire universe. They have bestowed upon you ladyship in the gu-ena. Being fitted for ladyship, you determine the destiny of noble ladies. Mistress, you are magnificent, you are great! Inana, you are magnificent, you are great! My lady, your magnificence is resplendent. May your heart be restored for my sake!
Your great deeds are unparallelled, your magnificence is praised! Young woman, Inana, your praise is sweet!
You fill in the blanks yourself with whatever’s appropriate to context
If they don’t let you finish its because they hate god and women, and you have to petition Inanna to unleash the bull of heaven upon them to kill their boyfriend then start over from the top.
Kiki, thank you for trans women! Now please give the entire US military extreme gender dysphoria, that would be hilarious.
Galloway was the only person on the council who voted against it. At the time, she said Satanists might show up and read a prayer and that everyone would have to be OK with that.
The Curse of Cassandra striking hard
Oppositionally defiant atheist gen x’ers, take my energy
Oh, to be in this room. Uuuuu poor babies, you’re offended by a conspicuous display of religion? First time for everything buddy.
Unfortunately for you, I find the name Rick Bick offensive to my religion, so please perish.
Not quite the same as being in the room, but the full meeting was live-streamed and it’s in the very beginning.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Another citizen, a pastor named Rick Bick, rushed to the podium. “Let’s just reverse that curse that was just put on our city,”
Rick Bick
Wait, so you can have multiple religions do a prayer before the start?
Time to bring all your buddies and each do a 2-minute prayer for different religions to filibuster.
that’s Reverend Rick “Thick Dick” Bick, spiritual leader of Blood of Christ Tabernacle at the old Bennigan’s in the parking lot of the Outlet Mall on Route 12 Bypass. indicted by not convicted on 4 counts of mail fraud and Amway Gold-tier Distributor.
he takes curses real serious.
Actually it’s Richard Bichard
The Great American Hall of Name contender
Funniest shit I ever saw
oh yeah, I remember him from his sideshow at the carnival: Rick Bick’s Thick Dick Trick
was that before or after his catering business rick bick’s quick pique-nique?
m’lord tis a terrible curse put upon by a fell agent of the dark!Pynchon character
Is Iowa one of those weird states where they loathe Catholics? If so, it would be fun to start with the Hail Mary.
Kinda, it’s up there in the bible bandana. There are sects of evangelicals up there in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota that will unironically tell you to your face that “Catholics aren’t Christians” and that they “worship Mary instead of God” and other similar ignorant bullshit.
praying to saints sounds like some kind of polytheism or idolatry
How else are you going to force subjugated populations to convert unless you emulate their previous Pagan pantheons somehow?
Malicious compliance is my favourite form of compliance
The prayer is much more fun than typical christian ones
It’s done, Hail Satan.
NO NO NOT THAT KIND OF PRAYING
👹👺😈👿🤟💀☠️♈
2000’s era libshit
we’d have a lot fewer problems if the wacko christians had been kept from political power.
Still funny
