(Photo by Christina Estes - KJZZ)

The innvocation before a Phoenix City Council meeting on Feb. 3, 2016.

With the prospect of a Satanic prayer at its next meeting, the Phoenix City Council voted on Wednesday night to end public invocations and instead hold a moment of silence. The change will effectively block followers of the Satanic Temple from giving an invocation later this month.

Hours of emotional debate over the First Amendment and the role of faith came down to an undesirable choice for most council members.

The first: change the process and let the council and mayor take turns selecting who gives an invocation. The other, advanced by council member Thelda Williams, was to substitute a moment of silent prayer.

During the hours of public comment, the majority of speakers supported the proposal to let council members pick and not end opening prayer. Many cited their faith and rejected that Satanism was a religion. The motion was backed by four council members, including Sal DiCiccio and Jim Waring, and would have applied retroactively to prevent the Satanist invocation scheduled for Feb. 17.

But when it came time for council members to vote, it became evident that City Attorney Brad Holm believed applying the rule change to an already scheduled invocation would be unconstitutional.

Mayor Greg Stanton echoed that, saying such a move could put the city in “constitutional peril.”

Waring expressed anger over how the city’s legal department handled the issue, saying they had been misled by previous statements from the city attorney. He also pointed out the city should have foreseen this problem coming.

“Another city screw up,” said Waring, “The Satanists win. That’s not acceptable to me.”

DiCiccio went further and said the presentation was “rigged” as a way to ban prayer.

“What you’re seeing is a long-term tradition literally being changed overnight,” said DiCiccio, “It was all done, all these things get done behind closed doors in the city of Phoenix.”

DiCiccio promised he would put the issue to a vote of the people in the next election.

Several of the council members offered emotional accounts about their faith and took offense to DiCiccio’s implication they were supportive of Satanists.

Ultimately, the council voted 5-4 in favor of ending prayer before meetings.

Updated 2/4/2016 at 8:12 a.m.

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