Wiccan priest opens Huntsville City Council meeting with prayer for 'a spirit of peace and comity'

HUNTSVILLE, Alamaba - Huntsville isn't backing down from a promise to make City Council invocations a better reflection of the area's growing religious diversity.

Moments after City Council President Mark Russell gaveled Thursday night's meeting to order, Blake Kirk, a Wiccan priest, stepped to the microphone to deliver the opening prayer. Read the full text of his invocation below.

Kirk was originally invited to give the invocation at a City Council meeting in late June. But when his name and affiliation - priest of the Oak, Ash and Thorn tradition of Wicca - appeared on the meeting agenda, alarmed citizens called and e-mailed City Hall.

The city rescinded Kirk's invitation; the June 26 meeting began instead with a moment of silence.

"I guess somebody got the collywobbles," Kirk told AL.com afterward. "Although this has been an attempt by the city to increase the diversity of those delivering the invocations, apparently diversity only goes so far. But the fact is, the First Amendment protects my right to practice my religion as much as anyone else. And governments are not supposed to pick and choose or to favor one religion over any other."

http://www.al.com/news/huntsville/index.ssf/2014/11/wiccan_priest_opens_huntsville.html