I may have mentioned on occasion that I live in the center of Oklahoma, one of the reddest and politically wackiest states in the Union. Despite having longstanding Constitutional protections against church/state entanglement, we have of late been barraged with religious monuments, both actual and potential.
First came the Christians, with their misspelled and misguided monument to the Ten Commandments.
Next came the Satanists, with their proposed monument to Satan as an historical and literary figure, hopefully to be placed on the State Capitol grounds. This generated news locally, nationwide, and even globally. Apparently, I was not the only one greatly amused by this ploy.
Now come the Hindus, with a new proposal for a statue honoring Hanuman. All aboard the publicity train! Come one, come all!
In the spirit of bandwagon jumping, I’d like to propose several more ideas for Oklahoma’s growing collection of potential religious artefacts.
- Azathoth – A monument exactly like the one created by Eric Piper, down to the last molecule. I would have already moved that one to the Capitol myself, but for the fact that it was too damn heavy.
- Capitalism – The most popular idolatry at our State Capitol is the worship of mammon. To represent this, we need an abstract artist to somehow depict the process whereby people of modest means are held down by a mysterious deity with a massive invisible hands, while lawmakers stand by and receive campaign contributions. Perhaps the famous Wall Street bull should also be included, taking a giant dump on a collection of huddled masses yearning to be free. I’m not saying this one will be easy to pull off, or even remotely popular, but it would be the first monument to that which we actually worship as a society.
- Islam – A giant statue of Muhammed that pisses off pretty much everyone. Christians will be upset because it glorifies the founder of another religion, Muslims because it would be an idolatrous visual representation of their own revered Prophet. We could model it after the existing frieze at the Supreme Court, which shows him bearing a sword and a Quran:
- Atheism – A granite bench much like the monument unveiled in Florida earlier this year, but with fewer salacious photos of EllenBeth Wachs. (If you missed those, too bad for you.
I’m not going to repost them because feminism.)
David Silverman pops a squat for great justice - Agnosticism – A giant sealed metal box that may (or may not) contain statues of other gods inside of it, as far as anyone knows. In actuality, it would contain only a single statue of Bastet along with a Geiger coutner, a hammer, and a flask of hydrocyanic acid.
- Universalism – After all the other monuments go up, the UU’s could place humble plaque stating that they are all equally valid paths to enlightenment, whatever one might take that to mean.
With that, I’m out of ideas for new monuments to place outside of the Oklahoma Capitol building. Please leave your own ideas in the comments.
