Ottumwa’s latest council meeting turned a policy meant to protect religious diversity into a test of how far official neutrality can stretch. A Satanic invocation, ending with “Hail Satan,” prompted a pastor’s demand for immediate intervention and exposed deep divisions among city officials.

Former council member Matt Dalbey opened the meeting by invoking the “dark father” and asking for the “Luciferian impulse to eat from the tree of knowledge.”¹ Pastor Rick Bick of New Life Center called the invocation a “curse” and insisted the council “reverse this curse” immediately, arguing that the words were “not welcome here.”¹

Mayor Benjamin Foote responded by ordering 30 seconds of silence for prayer or reflection. He later said the invocation “does not represent the faith or the values of families who call this city home,” distinguishing the speaker’s message from the broader community.¹

Council member Cara Galloway took a sharply different view. She argued that once Ottumwa adopted an invocation policy recognizing “organized and unorganized religious denominations” as well as “other faiths, belief systems, or the lack thereof,” the council had to accept viewpoints many residents might find offensive.¹ Her warning was practical as well as constitutional: allowing officials or residents to answer one invocation could create a cycle of objections, disputes and potential legal costs.

Dalbey, a member of The Satanic Temple of Iowa, said the prayer is commonly used by the group but “has nothing to do with the belief in a satanic deity.”¹ Council member Bill Hoffman, meanwhile, said he left during the invocation but defended Dalbey’s First Amendment right, calling himself “a Christian man with Christian values” who chose not to observe it.¹

The dispute therefore rests on two competing definitions of neutrality: Bick and Foote frame the invocation as an affront to community values, while Galloway and Hoffman treat neutrality as protecting the speaker’s right—even when officials strongly disagree.