Fake Satanist group representative to 'bless' Austin City Council

UPDATE: The "minister" has called out for reason of being out of the country for Thursday's meeting.

Evil as the Austin City Council may be at times, there's something sinister about this screenshot:

At 9:55 a.m. Dec. 1 the Austin City Council will host a representative of The Satanic Temple for an "invocation." (To invoke whom or what, exactly, would be the question to ask.)

We're reluctant to give this any attention at all. The Satanic Temple movement is no more a Satanic religious group than Westboro Baptist Church is an actual Baptist congregation (in other words, not really). They even claim to be "non-theistic." Satanic Temple is an Internet forum-fueled front group designed to challenge the predominance of Judeo-Christian ministers at city hall meetings and other official functions where the spiritual community is allowed to come and ask blessings from Almighty God. They see the Ten Commandments as an affront to "separation of church and state" and have attempted to erect statues of a goat to represent Satanism in a supposed attempt to spread religious pluralism. And you better believe a lawyer or two are making some money off of this arrangement.

Is this why the City Council is caving in to pressure -- to avert a potential legal settlement or judgment? Or has the modern notion of religious pluralism in American public life finally jumped the shark?

The framers of our Constitution (you know, the guys who came up with the whole "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion" thing?) had no trouble with the understanding that the Judeo-Christian God is our default. He has been invoked all the way leading back to the Constitutional convention. And let's not forget our Pilgrim forebears who set the pattern for American civic life that the founders adhered to. We believe God has blessed us for honoring him while maintaining religious liberty and not officially favoring one sect over the other.

Our founding fathers did not discriminate between Episcopal, Congregationalist, Baptist, Methodist Episcopal, Unitarian, etc. Over time that notion came to include Jewish prayers and, more recently, anyone who bows a knee to a power higher than man. Let each community make the decision on who should offer these prayers.

But does this inclusionary viewpoint now mean we are now forced to accommodate those who wish to pray to a figure that is almost universally understood to be the enemy of God? What's next, a prayer to nothing in particular? A prayer to "the unknown god" in case we missed one of an emerging pantheon of deities?

Instead, our city leaders should take a stand and not let pranksters with prepaid legal counsel "bless" the taxpayers' business. There are plenty of religious liberty organizations that would gladly take up the case of defending the sacred nature of a city hall opening prayer should the City of Austin take a stand for the God who made us free.

(To the city's defense, in 1990 it fought against and won a case brought about by a frivolous lawsuit to remove the Latin cross from the city's official seal. Various gadflies have taken up this fight unsuccessfully in more recent years.)

Allowing pranksters with a philosophical axe to grind to effectively stand on the Creator's throne and dictate to us is missing the point of seeking God's counsel in the first place. We should aspire to be "one nation under God," not a segmented populus under continual fear of lawsuits.

UPDATE: Rep Tony Dale wrote via Facebook:

At the December 1, 2016 Austin City Council meeting the invocation will be conducted by The Satanic Temple.  That is not simply being weird, but rather it is deeply disturbing.

In 2014 U.S. Supreme Court decided a case called the City of Greece vs. Galloway where the Court said that the town's practice of opening its town board meetings with a prayer offered by members of the clergy does not violate the Establishment Clause when the practice is consistent with the tradition long followed by Congress and state legislatures, the town does not discriminate against minority faiths in determining who may offer a prayer, and the prayer does not coerce participation with non-adherents.

The City of Austin apparently allows people to sign up with the city clerk to offer the invocation.  The city council should change their policy to have the council members and mayor rotate and invite members of the faith community to offer the invocation.  This method is not only constitutional, but it makes elected officials, not unelected bureaucrats, accountable for the conduct of their meetings.

In the absence of such a change the clergy and leaders of Austin’s faith community should step up and volunteer to offer the invocation.  If one is concerned about a lack of Judeo-Christian values being represented in the public square than you should not shirk your obligation to share your faith with others. Ask your pastor or rabbi to volunteer. Apparently the Austin City Council needs some options from which to pick.