A Satanic invocation prompted ire in a Alaskan town, with the mayor and other officials walking out of the local government meeting.
“Let us demand that humans be judged for their actions,” Iris Fontana, a member of the Satanic Temple said, encouraging attendees at the meeting to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, according to the Peninsula Clarion.
The prayer was the culmination of a protracted legal battle between the Kenai Peninsula Borough and the American Civil Liberties Union over the county equivalent’s invocation policy. In 2016, three plaintiffs, including the woman who gave the controversial invocation, sued over a policy by the borough that banned invocations from unofficial organizations.
Anchorage Superior Court Judge Andrew Peterson ruled that the borough’s policy violated the state constitution, which holds that the government can’t establish an official religion or favor one belief system over another. The assembly voted against appealing the ruling in November.
The Tuesday meeting was the first time someone from the Satanic Temple gave an invocation at a borough assembly meeting since the ruling. Demonstrators showed up in force outside of the assembly building, located in the 5,000-person town of Soldotna. About 40 protesters waved signs that read, “reject Satan and his works,” and “know Jesus and his love.”
During the invocation, a number of people walked out of the room, including two assembly members, the borough’s chief of staff, and Mayor Charlie Pierce.
