The First Amendment guarantees individuals the right to practice any religion. However, 224 years after the Bill of Rights was ratified, what constitutes a religion is still up for debate.
On Wednesday, following a weeks-long feud between local Christians and members of the Satanic Temple (an atheistic organization that uses satanic symbolism to promote secular values), the Phoenix City Council voted 5-4 to permanently replace the opening invocation that usually takes place at city council meetings with a "moment of silent prayer."
Personally, I like that decision. I believe everyone has a different kind of relationship with God, so I think it's unreasonable to expect a single prayer to be suitable for everyone at the city council meetings.
Unfortunately, the tactics used by the Satanists that led to that decision caused a lot of people to become enemies in the process.
Here's how it went down:
Last December, two members of the Satanic Temple requested to deliver the opening prayer at the upcoming Feb. 17 Phoenix City Council meeting, threatening to sue should they be denied the opportunity to speak.
The following video shows Temple member Michelle Shortt reciting the prayer that she wanted to say at the meeting.
It's important to remember that the members of the Satanic Temple don't believe in a deity or a literal Satan who has the power to do evil. Rather, they view Satan as a literary embodiment of rebellion and justice.
In the past, invocations at the Phoenix City Council have been delivered by members of a variety of different religious groups, so the City Council didn't have a way to deny the Satanists' request without appearing discriminatory.
Many local Christians were furious about this, interpreting the request as either (at best) an insult to their beliefs, or (at worst) an actual attempt to summon evil spirits.
At that point, the city council had only had two viable options:
1. Prevent the Satanists from doing the invocation.
2. Remove the opening prayer and replace it with a moment of silence.
They went with the latter.
Many people were unhappy with that decision, claiming that by replacing the invocation, the city council had let the Satanists win.
I disagree with that way of thinking. The Satanists "won" because they were, in principle, right. There's no reason why a city council meeting needs to honor a specific religion before each meeting when it can just as easily allow the attendees to each pray however they please.
Even though I disagree with the methods used by the Satanic Temple, I believe that they were right to challenge the established system of allowing one religious person to represent the whole city council meeting.
Reach the columnist at cmfitzpa@asu.edu or follow @CodyFitzStories on Twitter.
Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
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