Stevens is calling the efforts to end prayer in government meetings the "Satan or Silence Project,” and he has already prompted several local cities to begin opening their meetings with moments of silence instead of prayer.
One county however, is putting up a fight. Lake County in Central Florida has so far refused to honor Stevens’ request, so now the blogger is threatening to sue.
“There won’t be any satanic prayers while I’m chairman,” Lake County Commission Chairman Jimmy Conner told the Orlando Sentinel. “The man isn’t going to bully me. If he hates God, he can do that. But we’re not going to spread devil worshipping in our chamber.”
Stevens has now retained two lawyers willing to take up the cause. He also claims that he has been receiving death threats in the form of anonymous emails.
This isn’t Stevens’ first time making headlines for fighting to keep the separation between church and state.
In 2013, Stevens erected a Festivus pole out of beer cans celebrating the fake holiday from the TV show Seinfeld. He then installed it at Florida's state Capitol in Tallahassee in protest of a nativity scene that they had on display.
“If I have to go to the city or county commission to get my roof fixed or something and I have to go through church for a few minutes, I hate it,” Stevens told Fusion. “We pay them to get right to the business at hand—the trash, the police, the fire department—not to pray.”
When asked by Fusion’s Casey Tolan what a satanic prayer looks like, Stevens explained that he has not thought it through that far yet.
“I don’t think we’ll ever get to that point,” he added. “Sometimes, politics is all about the performance.”
