FFRF urges Iowa city to end divisive prayer after satanic controversy
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
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.
The post FFRF urges Iowa city to end divisive prayer after satanic controversy appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.
FFRF awards $19,450 to 2026 high school essay winners
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is proud to announce the awarding of $19,450 to students in its 2026 William Schulz High School Essay Contest.
College-bound high school seniors were asked to write a personal persuasive essay based on this prompt: “My favorite freethought/humanist hero/ine. Write a personal essay about your favorite freethinker or humanist and what they did or are doing to improve or enrich our lives.”
FFRF conferred 12 top prizes and 12 honorable mentions this year. (FFRF seeks to distribute essay scholarship monies to a higher number of students, so ties — such as fifth place in this contest — are not regarded in the typical tie fashion, where, in this instance, sixth place would be skipped.)
Winners are listed below and include the college or university they are now attending and the award amount.
FIRST PLACE
Carlie Wong, UC Berkeley, $3,500.
SECOND PLACE
Jacob McBride, Saint Joseph’s University, $3,000.
THIRD PLACE
Isabella Fitch, University of Vermont, $2,500
FOURTH PLACE
Sydney Anker, Azusa Pacific, $2,000.
FIFTH PLACE (tie)
Naija Zamora-Johnson, University of Houston, $1,500.
Noah Bouchard, Cal Poly State San Luis Obispo, $1,500.
SIXTH PLACE
Jasper Koneshwaran, UBC Okanagan, $1,000.
SEVENTH PLACE
Noah Vandeloecht, Washington University, $750.
EIGHTH PLACE (tie)
Emmett Palmer, University of Washington, $500.
Rotimi Esiso, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, $500.
NINTH PLACE
Ariadna Garcia, University of Houston, $400.
TENTH PLACE
Mason Sitts, College of the Redwoods, $300.
HONORABLE MENTIONS ($200 each)
Vanessa Apostolakos, University Of Southern Indiana
Jazlyn Brown, Clark Atlanta University
Anna Mae Corrigan, Oregon State University
Ela Ekinci, Virginia Tech
Donna Lee, USC
Maya Maizland
Rhana Shpoon, University of Central Florida
Samuel Slepack, UNLV
Aayah Vickers, Virginia Tech
Ruby Wagner, Bowling Green University
The high school contest is named for the late William J. Schulz, a Wisconsin member and lifelong learner who died at 57 and left a generous bequest to FFRF.
The state/church watchdog thanks FFRF’s Lisa Treu for managing the many details of this and other FFRF annual student competitions. And we couldn’t judge these contests without our volunteer and staff readers and judges, including: Dan Barker, Anita Barrett, Anne Bendixen, Bri Deyo, Elizabeth Engelhardt, Wrenna Fine, Annie Laurie Gaylor, Richard Grimes, Ricki Grunberg, Susan Haines, Tracy Hoffman, Robert Holley, Sammi Lawrence, Robert Leonhard, Katya Maes, David Malcolm, Tori Mizerak, Barbara Nolta, Charles Riedesel, Roe Mary Sheldon, PJ Slinger and Michelle Smith.
FFRF has offered essay competitions to college students since 1979, high school students since 1994, grad students since 2010 and one dedicated to students of color, now called “first in the family,” since 2016. A fifth contest, open to law students, began in 2019. The winning essays will appear in the November issue of FFRF’s newspaper, Freethought Today.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With over 40,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
The post FFRF awards $19,450 to 2026 high school essay winners appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Freethought Radio – October 8, 2026
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
FFRF Action Fund’s legislative team gives us a rundown on the Nov. 3 ballot initiatives around the country, both good and bad. Then, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten describes her new book, “Why Fascists Fear Teachers.”
The post Freethought Radio – October 8, 2026 appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Satanic invocation sends Iowa city council meeting into chaos
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We’ve heard plenty of stories about non-Christian invocations being delivered at city council meetings, but rarely do they descend into the kind of chaos we saw in Ottumwa, Iowa on Tuesday.
The invocation was delivered by former City Council member Matt Dalbey, a member of the (non-theistic) Satanic Temple of Iowa, who called on the crowd to “embrace the Luciferian impulse to eat from the tree of knowledge” before ending his invocation with a “Hail Satan.”
Thank you, Mayor Council. Let us pray.
Dear Dark Father, let us stand now unbowed and unfettered by arcane doctrines born of fearful minds in darkened times.
Let us embrace the Luciferian impulse to eat of the tree of knowledge and dissipate our blissful and comforting delusions of old.
Let us demand that individuals be judged for their concrete actions, not their fealty to arbitrary social norms and illusory categorizations.
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.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that invocation. It’s uplifting and thoughtful. If you remove the Satanic references, no one would find that controversial in the least.
But this is Iowa. Shortly after that invocation was given and the roll call was complete, New Life Center Pastor Rick Bick ran up to the microphone and demanded the council “reverse the curse.”
“That was a curse put on the city when he said, ‘Hail Satan’ and ‘Dark God” [sic]. And you most of you know that and we need to just stop and reverse it,” he whined.
This is Christian privilege. No one has the right to rush the mic and demand a different invocation be delivered because he didn’t agree with the first one. I think Christian invocations are inappropriate at government meetings, but it would also be inappropriate to demand a secular one be delivered immediately afterwards to undo the damage. There’s a process. And if Bick wanted to deliver a Christian invocation in the future, he would have that opportunity.
Council member Cara Galloway attempted to wrest control of the meeting away from the arrogant pastor, saying he could speak during the public comment portion of the meeting if he wanted. But Mayor Benjamin Foote stepped in to say he ran the meeting, and he insisted they pause the meeting to hold a 30-second moment of silence. That way the Christians could ask God for whatever the hell they wanted.
While Foote may have wanted to prevent this controversy from getting out of control, he made a mistake. There was no reason to have a moment of silence because it was essentially a capitulation to Christians unhappy with the invocation. There’s no world in which a request for a Revenge Invocation after a pastor’s prayer would have been accommodated in any way.
And when Foote explained his decision to Fox News Digital later, he only made the problem worse:
Reacting to the controversy, Foote told Fox News Digital, “This is not a reflection of our community. 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.”
He’s lying. That invocation represents the values of someone who lives in the city. Which part was he upset with? Being judged for his actions? Rejecting arbitrary authority that threatens people’s personal rights? Or the fact that Satan was invoked instead of his preferred mythological figure?
If you don’t want non-Christian invocations at meetings, then cancel the useless tradition altogether.
The Ottumwa Courier reports that when the invocation policy was adopted earlier this year, Galloway was the only council member to vote against it and she’s never stood for any of the invocations delivered so far. That policy says invocations are an opportunity to “include our Creator into our decision making,” falsely suggesting everyone’s Christian to begin with. Nevertheless, it appears that anyone can request to give one. Next year’s calendar is already full, and Dalbey is once again on the list. He’s also slated to give one on November 3.
Toward the end of the meeting, Galloway chimed in once more to deliver a well-deserve “I told you so” remark:
… I just want to kind of comment on what happened tonight. So, 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 for others to object or respond.
And this is exactly why I had concerns about having an invocation when we first talked about it. I think I even specifically referenced… having someone from the Church of Satan, or a prayer about Satan, when we talked about that—that this could happen and we would need to allow it.
So, I just want to remind us that, again, sometimes things are said that we may not agree with… while you’re allowed to do the moment of silence and that kind of thing, too, I think we’ve opened ourselves up for others to object or respond to others’ invocations. And we need to remember that we are up here to be neutral and allow viewpoints because we’ve opened up invocations.
She gets it. The mayor doesn’t. The other council members didn’t say anything publicly to back her up.
But it doesn’t look like the backlash has died down. On Wednesday, the city issued a formal statement reminding people that opening invocations to everyone (the only legal way to do it) means accepting speakers you may not like.
… It is very clear that many of you have watched at least the first two minutes of the October 6 City Council meeting.
We have been fielding calls all day about the invocation given at this meeting. Some calls have been cordial, while many have been rude and full of profanities.
An invocation policy was passed on January 20, 2026, that started the practice of invocations at regular meetings… We cannot discriminate against a denomination and everyone that is invited to perform the invocation has followed the correct protocol.
We are not informed ahead of time what will be said for an invocation nor do we automatically endorse what the speaker is saying. We encourage everyone to review the policy.
The statement itself is fine, but you have to wonder: What the hell did they expect? Did they seriously think they would only hear Christian invocations? That no one would get upset if a non-Christian was allowed to speak? Just because religious zealots don’t understand The Satanic Temple (and the fact that they don’t believe in a literal Satan), you can bet they’re going to complain if they don‘t get their way every time. That’s how it always goes.
The council should eliminate the invocation entirely and just do their damn jobs. Let people pray on their own time. Because there will be more Satanic invocations after this, and you can expect local pastors to whine about it every time it happens because guys like Bick don’t understand how religious pluralism works.
For what it’s worth, this isn’t the first time a corrective measure to a secular or Satanic invocation has been requested or allowed. It’s happened multiple times in Florida. It even occurred in the Arizona legislature in 2017 when a state legislator gave a secular invocation, only to see one of her colleagues request and receive permission to deliver a Christian one right after.
I reached out to Dalbey to see what he thinks about this backlash but haven’t heard back as of this writing.
Bick, on the other hand, spoke with Christian Nationalist Tony Perkins about his supposedly courageous stand, and Perkins glazed him, saying he commended Bick’s “righteous indignation,” told him he “did the right thing to break that curse,” and said his actions were “appropriate.”
It’s a reminder that Perkins doesn’t believe in religious neutrality at all. He’s a theocrat who believes non-Christians in any aspect of government are illegitimate. He would be apoplectic if an atheist did what Bick did after a Christian invocation, but Perkins is incapable of putting himself in anyone else’s shoes because his religion teaches him never to do that.
