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Festivus Man Wants To Bring Satanic Prayer To Deerfield Beach

Chaz Stevens is using Satanic prayer to protest a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
Creative Commons
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Flickr user nzhamstar
Chaz Stevens is using Satanic prayer to protest a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
Chaz Stevens is using Satanic prayer to protest a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
Credit Creative Commons / Flickr user nzhamstar
/
Flickr user nzhamstar
Chaz Stevens is using Satanic prayer to protest a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

Click here to listen to the radio version of this story.

Chaz Stevens is a South Florida activist who passionately disagrees with a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision. In a five-to-four split, the high court ruled that opening a town board meeting with prayer was constitutional.

So to poke fun at the decision, Stevens has asked Deerfield Beach to allow him to read a Satanic prayer to open a commission meeting.

The prayer goes like this:

Ave Santana

Hail Satan, Lord of Darkness, King of Hell, Ruler of the Earth

God of this world, God who invited us to become as god

Muse of our civilization

Dread enemy of a tyrant god

Satan, mighty liberator, bearer of true light

God of our flesh, God of our mind

God of our innermost will

Oh mighty lord Satan, teach us to become strong and wise

Teach us to vanquish the enemies of our freedom and wellbeing

Rege Santana

Although the Church of Satan does exist, Stevens is definitely not a member. He doesn't identify as a member of any church. But he sees this as an opening for conversation and if that conversation doesn’t go the way he hopes, litigation.

“What business does government have… in the business of religion?" he asks. "It has nothing to do [with religion] and it should be out of it."

This prayer request picks up after Stevens' previous airing of grievances about the lack of separation of church and state: He installed a Festivus pole made of Pabst Blue Ribbon cans in the rotunda of the capitol building in Tallahassee. That came after a nativity scene was set up in the building.

Deerfield Beach has not yet given Stevens an official answer. He said “there was a giant whooshing sound as if they were a turtle pulling their head back into their shell,” when he talked to some people at City Hall. He took that as a "no comment."

The prayer might need some polishing, but Stevens is determined. If the city rejects his request, he plans to fight the city in court.

“We’ve got prayer all the time in front of our meetings. How is it helping?" he asks. "Deerfield Beach kind of sucks. So what good is prayer? I don’t see the benefit.”Listen to Chaz Stevens read his Satanic prayer.

Festivus Man Wants To Bring Satanic Prayer To Deerfield Beach

Copyright 2014 WLRN 91.3 FM

Wilson Sayre was born and bred in Raleigh, N.C., home of the only real barbecue in the country (we're talking East here). She graduated from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where she studied Philosophy.