Fox News Vs. The Satanic Temple: A View From Outside The Echosphere

I'm fairly liberal, but believe it or not, I watch Fox News on occasion (part of being an informed, reasonable person is to take into consideration points of view that are different than our own. If we only listen to people we agree with, our perception quickly becomes skewed, which leads to flawed reasoning), and they absolutely lost their cool over this: Oklahoma accepted a ten commandments monument that was donated to them, and placed it on the capitol grounds. The Satanic Temple decided that was a great idea, and crowd-funded the statue seen in the picture (they have already exceeded their goal by 25%), to also be donated to the Oklahoma capitol grounds. Fox News talking heads went full-on Chicken Little (if the sky was actually falling every time Fox News said it was, there would be no sky left above us anywhere in the world), deciding this was the worst thing ever, not to mention a terrible insult to a Christian nation, and that it should not be tolerated. Here's why they're 100% wrong, though. True, America's citizens are predominantly Christian, but that is a lot different than being a theocracy. The separation of church and state does not prohibit the display of religious monuments on government grounds; it simply prohibits the government from playing favorites. If a state government is going to display something from one religion, they have to give EVERY religion that same chance. Florida recently got this right, when, after letting a Christian group put up a nativity in the halls of the capitol for Christmas, also accepted such things as a festivus pole and a display from the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (my son Colten, incidentally, likes the Pastafarian view very much). While I, myself, in no way relate to the views held by Satanic Temple members, I still respect their right to be part of the conversation, because the U.S. has this awesome concept called "freedom of religion" (I know that Christians sometimes think this means everyone is free to be a Christian, but that's not actually how it works). The state of Oklahoma brought this problem upon themselves, and are now faced with three choices: they can display the Satanic Temple's monument on the capitol grounds; they can remove the ten commandments monument; or, the state can decline the monument and deal with a lawsuit they are likely to lose, which would place them squarely back at choices one or two. Personally, I hope Oklahoma chooses to accept the statue. It looks totally metal and would be a tourist attraction for a state that desperately needs something worth seeing (and what kid wouldn't like to go sit in Satan's lap? What's that? Kids like to sit in Santa's lap, not Satan's? My bad. I get confused because the letters are all the same, and hard-core Christians hate them both. I vote we find one of those red and white hats with the pom-pom at the end to put on the statue, then pretend like no one ever noticed the difference). The more likely outcome, however, is that Oklahoma will remove the ten commandments, and while not as fun, is still a win for Americans' religious freedom, even if most religious people are too uptight to be able to recognize that fact.