The Freedom From Religion Foundation is calling on an Iowa city council to end its practice of opening meetings with religion after its mayor allowed a pastor to counter a satanic invocation.
As FFRF points out, the controversy shows why governmental prayer is inappropriate. In a letter sent Friday to Ottumwa Mayor Benjamin Foote and the City Council, the state/church watchdog criticizes the city’s response to an invocation delivered by former City Council member Matt Dalbey, a member of the Satanic Temple of Iowa, at the council’s Oct. 6 meeting.
Dalbey delivered the invocation under a policy adopted by the council in January that allows individuals of diverse religious and nonreligious perspectives to participate. His remarks encouraged reason, knowledge, truth, individual autonomy and freedom from arbitrary authority. He urged those present to judge individuals by their actions rather than their adherence to religious conventions. Dalbey also invoked the “Luciferian impulse” to seek knowledge and concluded his remarks with “Hail Satan.”
Shortly afterward, New Life Center Pastor Rick Bick approached the microphone without being recognized and demanded that the council “reverse the curse” he claimed Dalbey had placed upon the city. Bick insisted that the satanic invocation was unwelcome and called for an immediate religious response.
Council member Cara Galloway tried to maintain order, explaining that Bick could express his objections during the public comment portion of the meeting. But Mayor Foote overruled her, interrupting official proceedings to accommodate the pastor’s demands. Foote initially called for a 30-second “time of prayer” response, then changed his request to a “moment of silence.” The mayor later doubled down in comments to Fox News Digital, saying Dalbey’s invocation did not represent the community.
“This is not a reflection of our community,” Foote said. “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.”
FFRF highlights the shortcomings of such a perspective.
“Government officials cannot invite citizens of diverse religious and nonreligious perspectives to deliver invocations and then permit one religious group to effectively veto or ‘correct’ an invocation simply because it does not conform to their preferred theology,” writes FFRF Legal Counsel Christopher Line.
FFRF strongly objects to the mayor’s suggestion that minority religious beliefs or nonbelief somehow fall outside the values of his community.
“The mayor does not speak for the religious beliefs of every Ottumwa resident, nor does he have the authority to declare that minority religious or nonreligious perspectives fall outside the community’s values,” FFRF’s letter states.
FFRF clarifies that the Satanic Temple is a nontheistic religious organization whose members do not believe in a literal Satan. Its invocation expressed philosophical principles, not an attempt to “curse” the city.
While the city subsequently issued a statement acknowledging that it cannot discriminate among invocation speakers and does not necessarily endorse the religious messages delivered at its meetings, FFRF calls attention to how the council’s actual conduct contradicted its professed commitment to religious neutrality.
FFRF reminds the City Council the U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that legislative prayer practices cannot discriminate against minority religions. In Town of Greece v. Galloway, the court upheld a legislative prayer practice in part because the town welcomed invocation speakers of different religious perspectives, including atheists. The court emphasized that government bodies must maintain a “policy of nondiscrimination” and avoid “aversion or bias … against minority faiths.”
The controversy exposes problems with the city’s invocation policy itself. Resolution No. 18-2026 describes invocations as an opportunity to “include our Creator into our decision-making,” language that presumes a shared belief in a creator and suggests religion should influence official government decisions. Galloway, the lone vote against adopting the invocation policy, had warned that opening meetings with religious exercises would inevitably require accommodating perspectives that some residents found objectionable. Following the Oct. 6 controversy, Galloway reiterated her concerns.
“Opening with an invocation means allowing viewpoints that may not reflect our own,” she said. “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.”
FFRF commends Galloway for recognizing that religious neutrality requires protecting unpopular beliefs, not merely those favored by the majority.
“This entire controversy demonstrates exactly why government meetings should not begin with religious rituals,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Government is supposed to serve everyone, not referee theological disputes. City council members who feel the need to pray about liquor licenses, sewers and variances can pray on their own time and dime.”
FFRF is asking the Ottumwa City Council to discontinue invocations entirely and focus on the secular business of governing. The controversy was the predictable consequence of introducing religious exercises into a governmental setting, FFRF notes. FFRF has requested a written response detailing what steps the council will take to address the incident and prevent similar discriminatory treatment in the future.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with about 40,000 members nationwide, including hundreds of members in Iowa. FFRF’s purposes are to defend the constitutional principle of separation between church and state, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
