WATCH: Pagan prayer at city council meeting draws criticism

An opening prayer at a Tulsa City Council meeting has drawn backlash from some of Oklahoma’s Republican leaders for being “satanic.” The Tulsa City Council meeting on Nov. 20 opened with the Pledge of Allegiance. The council then welcomed a guest speaker, Amy McAdams, for the invocation.

McAdams began the prayer by saying she was a “priestess of the goddess” before invoking the name of Medusa and asking for injustice to be “petrified.”

“May these leaders find within themselves the body divine,” McAdams said. “Place in the hands of these leaders the sacred work of protecting the sovereignty and autonomy of all our people.”

The prayer was clipped and shared on social media where it was vilified by Oklahoma State Gov. Kevin Stitt.

“Satan is trying to establish a foothold, but Oklahoma is going to be a shining city on the hill,” Stitt wrote on X. “Tulsa City Council needs to stand strong against actions like this, and Tulsans need to remember who allowed this at the ballot box.”

Stitt previously claimed all of Oklahoma in the name of Jesus Christ and alongside Ryan Walters, the state’s top education official, has championed the opening of the nation’s first publicly funded religious charter school. Walters has also mandated that all Oklahoma schools teach the Bible in its classrooms.

Oklahoma’s Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who has opposed Stitt and Walters on the religious charter school, fired back at both saying this was the kind of slippery slope both brought on the state. Drummond also called the prayer “sacrilege.”

If Stitt Walters “get their way, this ‘Priestess of the Goddess’ could have her own religious school—funded by your tax dollars!” Drummond wrote on X.

Tulsa City Councilor Crista Patrick, who also practices paganism, told Public Radio Tulsa in an interview that her religion isn’t satanic, and she and McAdams are not demonic. She also wished Gov. Stitt wouldn’t speak about things he didn’t know about.

“I hope that [Stitt] can find a place in his heart to focus on his own spirituality and not focus on those that he is not informed about,” Patrick said.

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