EDITOR’S VIEWPOINT/Florida town knows the devil is in the details
Satan, as we all know, lives in Hell. He visits a lot of places, like Kabul, the Gaza Strip and Las Vegas. I do not know that he has ever visited Inglis, Fla., but here’s a piece of advice in case he might be thinking about it. Don’t even.
In January, Inglis Mayor Carolyn Risher was trying to find a powerful way to express her dismay over the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. She could have blasted the Taliban or Osama bin Laden or Mullah Omar or the liberal American culture that has made us all weak and easy prey for the loonies of the world. Instead, in a classic going-right-to-the-top move, she took on the Prince of Darkness, informing him in no uncertain terms that Inglis was, henceforth, a Satan-free Zone.
“Satan, ruler of darkness, giver of evil, destroyer of what is good and just, is not now, nor ever again will be, a part of this town of Inglis,” she proclaimed. Just for a moment, ignore the actual syntax of that statement, which makes it sound like Satan, at some point, was a fixture in Inglis life. The problem here is that Risher issued the statement on official town stationery.
Declaring to Satan that Inglis is off-limits to him and his minions is harmless enough, but doing it on town stationery is a bit dicey. Still, the act did get Risher her 15 minutes of fame, which consisted of an interview on CNN. During that interview, Risher explained herself by saying Inglis needed “to be ready if something like [terrorism] was to happen to the town.”
It might be of some small comfort to Risher to know that I had trouble finding Inglis on the map. (It’s somewhere in north central Florida near Ocala.) I do know this: the town consists of 1,241 people who live on 5.88 square miles that are 759 miles from Washington, D.C. Terrorists, I’m fairly sure, are not that interested, Satan or no Satan.
The outcry over Risher’s act was muted. A few residents complained that Risher was using town letterhead to disseminate her personal opinion. And the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Florida called the proclamation “the most extreme intrusion into religion by a public official that I have ever seen in my 27 years as a director of the ACLU.” (When is that organization going to learn that some things that look intrusive, insensitive and unconstitutional are really just funny?)
However, the town council and most of the Inglis residents who showed up at a recent town meeting voiced support for Risher’s declaration. In doublespeak that would have made a Beltway lawyer proud, the town’s attorney said the proclamation was not an official municipal statement, despite the fact that it was published on town letterhead. Meanwhile, I just can’t get that worked up about it. I find it amusing that Satan can go to Hell, but he can’t go to Inglis.