City Commissioners, Mayor Walk Out Of Atheist Invocation

Some city commissioners and the mayor of Lake Worth, Florida recently walked out of a city meeting as an atheist began to deliver the invocation.

Lake Worth's Mayor Pam Triolo and three other commissioners recently walked out of the invocation being delivered by local atheist activist Preston Smith, who has been set to give the December 2 invocation since July.

A YouTube video shows the city leaders walking out as Smith begins to speak. According to the Broward Palm Beach New Times, Smith's invocation "prayed" that "Our collective atheism -- which is to say, loving empathy, scientific evidence, and critical thinking -- leads us to believe that we can create a better, more equal community without religious divisions."

Triolo later told media outlets that she did not walk out on Smith's invocation because he is an atheist, but rather because of an "offensive" tweet he posted back in July that criticized the Bible's Book of Deuteronomy.

The tweet suggested that the Bible's Book of Deuteronomy promotes rape.

The mayor told the Sun Sentinel that she didn't realize three of her fellow commissioners would follow her out of the meeting.

"I had no idea they were going to follow me out," the mayor told the media outlet, adding: "We didn't talk about it."

"I didn't leave because he's an atheist, I left because of his alleged Tweet," Triolo continued. "Free speech works both ways. You can say what you want, and I can choose to leave."