TOLEDO — At last week’s Tama County Board of Supervisors meeting, held on Sept. 3, there was only one agenda item, a request to use the Tama County Courthouse lawn for a “Bible reading on Sept. 16-17 — Paradise Lost: Reading Marathon.” Assistant County Auditor Karen Rorhrs stated that she did not take the phone call for the request and didn’t know what group was making the request. With little more discussion, the agenda item was approved unanimously.

Now, this Monday morning, before the meeting even officially began, local citizen Carolyn Adolphs came in to raise the alarm and ask questions of the supervisors because, as it turns out, The Satanic Temple of Iowa was the group approved for next week’s reading. Through the comment section time reserved for items on this week’s agenda, The Satanic Temple of Iowa and their approved reading of “Paradise Lost” by John Milton were discussed.

“It sounds like the thing we passed was a misrepresentation,” Supervisor Bill Faircloth said.

After some conversation about possibly contacting the county attorney to see if any action could be taken, Supervisor Dan Anderson weighed in with his thoughts.

“If we let other folks do it, then our hands are probably pretty tied,” he said.

Citizen Laura Wilson brought up the separation of church and state and possibly not allowing any group to hold readings on the courthouse lawn in the future. Many felt that The Satanic Temple misrepresented themselves when they described the event as a Bible reading.

“The problem is what do they consider their Bible? So, they could tell you guys, ‘We’re gonna read the Bible all day,'” Tama County Deputy and candidate for Sheriff Casey Schmidt said. “They could take any document to be their Bible.”

In the end, no action was taken on the subject during the meeting.