Other plaintiffs who had been denied permission to give the invocations included an atheist and a Jewish woman. The Pastafarian invocation followed one in June from Satanic Temple member Iris Fontana that caused about a dozen people to leave the chamber in protest when she invoked “Hail Satan” in her opening prayer.įontana was among the plaintiffs in the lawsuit litigated by the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska against the borough after it approved a 2016 policy saying that people who wanted to give the invocations at the government body's meetings had to belong to official organizations with an established presence on the Kenai Peninsula.

One man turned his back to face the wall during the invocation, and other men did not remove their hats. The only people who stood for the invocation were those without seats in the standing-room-only assembly hall in Homer, which is about 125 miles south of Anchorage.

May the great Flying Spaghetti Monster rouse himself from his stupor and let his noodly appendages ground each assembly member in their seats,” Fletcher said. “So, I’m called to invoke the power of the true inebriated creator of the universe, the drunken tolerator (sic) of the all lesser and more recent gods, and maintainer of gravity here on earth. HOMER - A pastor wearing a colander on his head offered the opening prayer on behalf of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster to open a local government meeting in Alaska, the latest blessing from a nontraditional church since a court ruling.īarrett Fletcher, the Pastafarian pastor, noted the duties performed by the members of the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly in his Tuesday message, adding a few of them 'seem to feel they can’t do the work without being overseen by a higher authority, ' Kenai radio station KSRM reported Wednesday. Updated: SeptemPublished: September 18, 2019įritz Creek area resident Barrett Fletcher gives the invocation before a Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly meeting as a representative of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster at Homer City Hall in Homer, Alaska, Tuesday, Sept.

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