According to Brad Holm, the attorney for the City of Phoenix, the “city can not dictate religious viewpoints or the content of a prayer”, and additionally “government may not exclude a denomination or a religion from praying under these circumstances”. After all, Jesus did say: “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others”.
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KPNX-TV reports City Manager Ed Zuercher said the council will review a proposal this week that would have the mayor and council members choose who would lead the pre-meeting prayer in the future.
The two emergency measures are scheduled to be discussed and voted on at Wednesday’s city council meeting. A chapter leader of the group even somewhat pointed out that the members would take legal action if denied the right to give the prayer.
The public wasted no time letting the Phoenix City Council know how it feels about prayer at meetings.
“The council members expressed reservations… about Satanists speaking before a council meeting”, council spokesman David Urbinato told AFP, adding that there was concern the group would create “distraction”.
The city Commission on Human Relations said Monday in a statement that de Haan’s group should be allowed to deliver the invocation on February 17 because defense of religion requires fair treatment of all.
A third person says a group that uses Satan in its name can not pass itself off as religious. The Satanic Temple of Tucson submitted its request in December to give the prayer and was on the schedule for a meeting later this month. “This will be just one more step in a social engineering for political correctness for Phoenix”.
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The nation’s highest court has upheld public bodies’ prayers during meetings.
