The Boston City Council used to pay clergy members to deliver an invocation at their meetings and only stopped the practice after The Satanic Temple requested the same opportunity.

That pay-to-pray revelation came during a deposition of Christine O’Donnell, Boston City Council Compliance Director and Staff Counsel, late last week as part of a lawsuit the Satanists filed against the city in early 2021.

The backstory here is that twice, in 2016 and 2017, The Satanic Temple’s Boston chapter formally asked the city council if their members could deliver an invocation at meetings. It seemed like a fair request, given that the city’s unwritten rules allowed council members, on a rotating basis, to select community members to give those opening remarks. No council member, however, stepped up to give Satanists that opportunity.

The Satanists argued in their lawsuit that Boston’s invocation practices discriminated against people who held unpopular religious beliefs. The lawsuit noted that, between 2011 and 2017, there were 233 invocations, disproportionately awarded to Christians, Muslims, and Jews. None of them were given by “Wiccans, other Pagans, and Native Americans.” ...