On Thursday, April 9th, my good friend Deb Maynard will be presenting the invocation at the Iowa Statehouse. She's a Wiccan Priestess. This is evidently the first time any State Representative has invited a clergy member of some faith other than Christianity to make the invocation, and our local news is calling it an "unusual choice" and "controversial" with many "unanswered questions".
Total Bullshit. They are trying to make a news story out of nothing. The real controversy is: Why are we still having invocations to any deity from any religion in our government system?
The issue: Since the Iowa Statehouse insists on following through with their traditional prayers, and since Iowa is also an equality state, all religions have to be treated the same. Therefore, we get to have a Wiccan priestess do the invocation. The resistance to equality is why the Satanic Church and the Pastafarians fight for the rights to represent their religious movement when the state has chosen one to promote (Christianity). Now that Deb has been invited to do the invocation, they can't revoke it, or they will create the controversy they are wishing to avoid.
I would like to take the day off to be there when she gives the invocation. There needs to be a few representatives of the Wiccan religion so that she doesn't have to shoulder the responsibility all on her own. I even commented on the local news story online, using my real name. If anyone cares about a Wiccan Priestess being allowed the same privilege a Christian minister receives, they will be reading that comment section. I'd like to see a bunch more names on that list before April 9th.
Is our local news TRYING to make sure there are protests at the Statehouse that day? Do they want to inform the Christian majority that a Wiccan Priestess will be available to verbally attack and spit on? I think that Iowa is not Alabama, and that this will just be another day of business for our lawmakers. We won't have to worry about which God is going to get to rule for the day based on who said the prayer that morning. It's not going to have an affect on the sane people.
