The City of Ottumwa says it’s been inundated with phone calls after an invocation to begin Tuesday night’s City Council meeting sparked national outcry.
Former city councilman Matt Dalbey started the October 6th meeting with an invocation addressing “Dark Father” and concluding the prayer with “Hail Satan.”
After the Pledge of Allegiance and role call, local pastor Rick Bick approached the podium. “Let’s just reverse that curse that was put on our city,” Bick said. “That is not welcome here.”
Councilwoman Cara Galloway asserted that Bick was speaking out of turn and his comments should be reserved for Section E of the council meeting agenda titled, “IDENTIFICATION OF CITIZENS DESIRING TO COMMENT ON AGENDA ITEMS” or the public forum at the end of the meeting.
“I appreciate what Ms. Galloway is saying but that was a curse put on our city saying, ‘Hail Satan’ and ‘Oh, dark god’…and we need to stop and reverse it,” Bick said.
Ottumwa Mayor Ben Foote then requested a 30-second moment of silence against the objections of Galloway who insisted on continuing the meeting with the consent agenda.
The city added the invocation to its city council meetings in January after council approved the policy on a 4-1 vote with Galloway the lone dissenting vote. The policy states that any Ottumwa resident can give the invocation provided they contact the mayor. The volunteers are then allowed to give the invocation on a first-come, first-served basis. Each individual is only permitted to give the invocation up to three times per fiscal year.
Tuesday was the first time Dalbey provided the invocation since the policy was approved. He is scheduled to give the invocation again during the city council meeting on November 3rd.
City Administrator Phil Rath spoke during “Dialogue” on KBIZ and pointed out the city’s invocation policy is open to “anybody and everybody.”
“We can’t discriminate based off others’ beliefs or religions,” Rath said. “That’s one of the cautions when you have a policy like this. There is freedom of speech and freedom of speech isn’t always speech that we appreciate or that we agree with. We’ll see where we go from here.”
How is this acceptable in a Christian country. We need to denounce the evil trying to overtake society. They need to pray for forgiveness and stop the devil before he claims all souls.