Three days after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Town of Greece v. Galloway, No. 12-696, 572 U.S. ___ (2014) (see our previous post about the case), a Deerfield Beach, Florida resident, Chaz Stevens, offered to open the next town council meeting with a Satanist prayer. He made the request in a letter to the city:
Dear City of Deerfield Beach,
With the recent US Supreme Court ruling allowing “prayer before Commission meetings” and seeking the rights granted to others, I hereby am requesting I be allowed to open a Commission meeting praying for my God, my divine spirit, my Dude in Charge.
Be advised, I am a Satanist.
Let me know when this is good for you.
He even provided an example of a prayer he might use:
O mighty Lord Satan,
Teach us to become strong and wise!
Teach us to vanquish the enemies
Of our freedom and well-being!
Stevens said that he recently converted from “Pabstfestidian” because “Satan is a cool dude.”
He added “I just want equal billing. We allow various religious nutjobs to give a prayer. They pray to Jesus who is make-believe, god who is make-believe, why not Satan who is make-believe?”
Stevens gained notoriety in December 2012 when he was allowed to construct a Festivus pole made out of empty beer cans in the rotunda of the Florida State Capital (click here to learn about Festivus). For his Festivus Pole efforts, Stevens received the not-too-prestigous “Winning at the Poles Award” in the annual Zoning and Planning Report Awards of 2013 (click here for the report).
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