With the summer less than a month away, the Lake Okeechobee Resort and Marina will be host to a festival commemorating and celebrating the solstice. But Pahokee residents, church members and pastors are outraged and beside themselves with angry grrr man those people! feelings because how dare they!?
The Lake Okeechobee Summer Solstice Festival is scheduled to be held June 19-23, and organizers are hoping this will be the first of many to come every summer solstice.
But those outraged about the city allowing this obvious devil-worshipping, probably baby-sacrificing festival to be held in their town are mad. So they attended a city council meeting to make loud angry noises at city leaders.
A number of people showed up to a Pahokee city commission meeting to express their frowny face-finger-wagging over the festival being allowed to take place, including pastors from varying churches.
Each angry person stepped up to the mic to let the Man know that allowing a festival where people celebrate a celestial body that resides in the sky and controls the weather and gives life-giving light, and helps crops grow is just a terrible, awful, no good thing.
Their main beef, of course, is that festivals like these celebrate witchcraft and occult practices (except that, you know, they don't). And so allowing it to go take place in the Holy Pahokee is an abomination.
"We don't need this in our town. Not now. Not ever," said Rev. Raul Rodriguez, of Church of God Door of Jesus Christ.
We don't need a one-time festival where people get together and celebrate weird things we don't like. This isn't like, you know, Christmas, where we celebrate the birth of a godchild, or Easter where we eat his body and drink his blood. Celebrating the summer is just weird, bros!
His daughter, Ruby Rodriguez said that this came as a shock to her. "We do live in a free country but of all of the cities in Florida, why would they choose Pahokee?" she asked.
Hey, it's a free country, and all. I mean, sure, Pahokee is in a free country, but it doesn't count because I don't like people who don't share my beliefs. So they should go to another town instead.
"We are opening ourselves up to things we should not, like belly dancing and magic spells," said Daniel Mondragon. "We do not welcome these things. This is the first annual event, and it should be the last."
We're allowing belly dancers and magic spells to invade our city! This should just be a one-time thing and that's it. ONLY WE ARE ALLOWED TO TALK TO AN INVISIBLE THING AND ASK FOR IT TO MAGICALLY HELP US GET A RAISE. THAT'S NOT MAGIC, THAT'S SCIENCE!
"God cannot heal our land if we have witches and warlocks violating our community," said Evangelist Lillian Brown, of Saints on the Move.
And goblins, and Sith Lords and those talking monkeys from the Charlton Heston movie!
"This event is not only detrimental to our city but to our county. What goes on at that lake will affect us all; it will move from the dike and into our homes."
THE NEXT THING YOU KNOW, OUR DAUGHTERS WILL BE BELLY DANCING WILLY NILLY ALL THROUGHOUT THE TOWN. IN OUR HOMES. OUR GROCERY STORES. THE DINER. THE PARK. THE LIBRARY. THE GAS STATION. WHERE WILL IT END. I. ASK. YOU.
For his part, the marina's director, Wayne Grey, took all this wackiness in stride and explained that the festival is not a devil conjuring party that will allow people to perform magic spells on residents. And that, bottom line, he's running a damn business where anyone who wants to have a festival worshipping whatever they wish is open to book his marina.
"It's business. I am trying to attract people to the marina and to Pahokee," he said. "I cannot do that if I begin discriminating just because of someone's religion. If any of the churches want to hold an event celebrating Jesus, they are more than welcomed to do so and I will market it just as we have with the Solstice."
Spoken like a true worshipper of Beezlebub!
Grey is also planning to host a power boat show and jet ski race at the marina soon.
But we all know jet skis are the devil's playground that will turn our children into frogs and bring God's wrath onto Pahooke!
Throw Mr. Grey into the water in his marina! If he doesn't drown, we'll know for sure that he's a warlock. If he does drown, well, then.... our bad.
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