A routine city council meeting in the small Iowa community of Ottumwa took an unexpected turn when a resident opened proceedings with a Satanic invocation.
Matthew Dalbey, a former council member and current Ottumwa resident, delivered the invocation at the start of last Tuesday’s meeting.
Residents initially stood as they typically do for the opening proceedings. That changed when Dalbey referred to the “dark father” and concluded his remarks with the words, “hail Satan.”
Several attendees appeared stunned, exchanging confused and uneasy looks before some moved to counter what they described as a curse.
The council then proceeded with the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States flag, although the unusual opening left many in the room visibly shaken.
“Dear Dark Father, let us stand now unbowed and unfettered by arcane doctrines born of fearful minds in darkened times,” Dalbey told the gathering.
“Let us embrace the Luciferian impulse to eat at the tree of knowledge and dissipate our blissful and comforting delusions of old,” he continued, according to footage of the meeting.
“That which will not bend must break, and that which can be destroyed by truth should never be spared its demise. It is done. It is done. Hail Satan,” Dalbey said.
Ottumwa resident Matthew Dalbey, a member of The Satanic Temple in Iowa, delivered an invocation ending with “hail Satan” before last Tuesday’s city council meeting
Ottumwa Mayor Benjamin Foote called for a moment of silence after resident Rick Bick objected to the invocation
Dalbey belongs to The Satanic Temple, a non-theistic religious organization based in Salem, Massachusetts.
Before the council moved into its scheduled agenda, a resident approached the podium to object to Dalbey’s invocation.
Pastor Rick Bick of the Christian New Life Center said, “Let’s just reverse this curse that was put on our city. That ending with ‘Hail Satan’ and ‘Hail Dark God,’ that’s not welcome here.”
Councilmember Cara Galloway asked Bick to wait until the meeting concluded. He responded that the effort to reverse the curse “needs to be done now.”
Mayor Benjamin Foote then paused the proceedings and ordered a 30-second moment of silence “to reflect on whatever it is we need to reflect on at this time, and then we will move on to the agenda.”
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In an interview with KCCI, Dalbey defended his beliefs and criticized what he called a rush to judgment. “We have a tendency in Ottumwa to jump to conclusions and fill in the blanks with information that’s not really true, based on very little effort and research and background on it,” he said.
The Iowa congregation of The Satanic Temple has also filed a lawsuit against the state seeking permission to hold a holiday event at the Iowa Capitol in December.
Council members continued standing for the Pledge of Allegiance, while many remained unsettled by the meeting’s unusual opening
The Satanic Temple is a non-theistic religious organization headquartered in Salem, Massachusetts. Its statue of Baphomet, a goat-headed figure associated with occultists and pagans for centuries, is pictured
The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa filed the lawsuit on behalf of The Satanic Temple congregation.
‘When the state makes the public space in the Iowa Capitol Rotunda available for religious holiday events, for example, a Christmas or Hanukkah event, it cannot then deny the same right to other religious groups it disfavors,’ American Civil Liberties Union Iowa state attorney Shefali Aurora said in a news release announcing the lawsuit.
She continued: ‘Members of the Iowa congregation of The Satanic Temple Iowa have the same right to express their beliefs as all other religious groups do.’
The Satanic Temple is an organization which advocates for freedom of religion and advocates for various causes in line with their mission, such as reproductive rights, mental health support, addiction recovery and community improvement projects such as blood drives and park clean-ups.
Reaction to the outburst at the meeting was mixed. Some people online said that this was simply the resident’s way of expressing his religion.
One person wrote: ‘If Christianity is allowed, then all other religions are too.’
Another said: ‘What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Maybe stop hosting invocations at government meetings, period.’
While others bashed the satanic introduction, and made fun of the situation.
A third commenter wrote: ‘He won’t like it when he actually goes there.’
And another added: ‘I’d run outta there so fast!’
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