City Hall Opens With Satanic Prayer

City Hall sign in front of a red-brick municipal building — Photo: The Brownfowl collection / Shutterstock

The meeting began with “Hail Satan,” and the policy that allowed it said city hall would not edit a single word.

Story Snapshot

Ottumwa’s open invocation policy invited all beliefs and banned content screening.
Former council member Matt Dalbey delivered the scheduled invocation and ended with “Hail Satan”.
Quoted lines praised “the luciferian impulse to eat from the tree of knowledge”.
City officials said they could not discriminate against a denomination or preapprove remarks.

The Policy That Set the Stage

Ottumwa’s city council adopted a new invocation policy on January 20, 2026. Reports say it welcomed organized and unorganized religions, other belief systems, and people with no faith. The same accounts say it barred the mayor, clerk, or staff from reviewing or editing what anyone would say in the prayer slot. That choice built a wide door. When government opens that door, it must apply it fairly. That is the simple through-line that led to this moment.

The United States Supreme Court has said councils may open meetings with prayer tied to history and tradition. The Court has also warned that officials cannot pick winners and losers among faiths. Town of Greece v. Galloway is the touchstone on that point, and later cases wrestle with minority-faith access under the same logic. Cities that create open forums take on a legal duty: apply the rules evenly, or face claims of bias.

What Happened In The Room

On October 6, former council member and Ottumwa resident Matt Dalbey stepped to the lectern to give the scheduled invocation under that policy. The language he used was not vague. Transcripts and video capture “Dear dark father,” praise for “the luciferian impulse to eat from the tree of knowledge,” calls for “reasoning with agnosticism in all things,” and the close, “Hail Satan”. The room reacted. The mayor then moved to a moment of silence and the meeting continued on the agenda.

City officials later explained their stance. They said the policy prevented them from screening or stopping remarks and that the city could not discriminate by faith category. They stressed that a speaker’s words did not become the city’s endorsement just because the person spoke at the podium. That is the core claim of many municipal policies: access does not equal approval.

How The Law Boxes In Local Leaders

Courts have not given cities a clean, single map. The Ninth Circuit allowed Scottsdale to refuse a Satanic group where the record showed neutral, history-based rules and no targeted bias. The First Circuit said Boston’s long-running, invite-based custom did not violate the Constitution when it excluded The Satanic Temple under its approach to clergy invitations. Those rulings share a common refrain: a city may keep its tradition, but it must avoid viewpoint discrimination dressed up as process.

Ottumwa chose an open sign-up with no content review, which leans hard toward viewpoint neutrality. That design makes it tougher to defend selective exclusions, but it also means controversial speech can and will appear. The upside is clean fairness. The downside is civic shock. Conservative readers know this tradeoff from school board microphones to library rooms: rules that treat everyone the same will, at times, offend many people. The answer is not a gag order; it is better rules and stronger culture.

What Comes Next For Ottumwa

The council can keep the policy and stick to it. That path accepts the cost of outlier speakers in exchange for legal clarity. The council can also narrow the policy. Options include limiting speakers to local clergy lists, rotating established congregations, or shifting to a moment of silence every meeting. Courts have upheld invitation models tied to history and community practice when they are applied in a neutral way and not as a mask for hostility to a disfavored group.

If you look at the whole video, the woman which interrupted the mayor, is the only one that did not stand up for the invocation.

She is council member Cara Galloway and is actually the one that warned weeks earlier (I suspect she is a secularist), a “nondiscriminatory”…

— GvonT (@Vons700) October 8, 2026

Residents often ask why the city “lets this happen.” The honest answer is that the Constitution guards content neutrality more than it guards comfort. A meeting belongs to everyone, not only to the loudest tradition. That does not mean leaders must shrug at community standards. It means they must write rules that serve order, dignity, and equality under the law. If Ottumwa wants prayer that reflects its civic life, the council must choose a framework and live by it in the bright light of day.