In many ways, he's exactly like Moses.

Hey, do you remember that controversial stone slab Oklahoma legislators put up on the grounds of the Capitol? The one with the Ten Commandments on it? You remember, it pissed a lot of people off, there's a couple of lawsuits, an Indiegogo campaign to put up a Satanic monument in response, it was a whole thing. Well, this happened the other night:

Finally, the debate over the separation of
church and state is over forever. Uh, right?

"Let's get one thing straight, I didn't tell
him to pee on it. That part was his idea."

-Satan, wisely distancing himself

Yup, Thursday night some guy called Michael Tate Reed Jr. drove his car into the Ten Commandments monument that stands outside the Oklahoma State Capitol smashing it to pieces because, get this: Satan told him to do it. That's right, the Prince of Darkness needs some jerk in a Camry to do his dirty work for him or at least that's what Reed told police when they arrested him this morning. Oh, and also it turns out that before destroying the tablet, he peed on it, because, uh, Satan I guess.

Speaking of pissing all over things, like say the First Amendment prohibition on the state endorsing a particular religion, fans of the monument promised to rebuild it using donated funds, citing a drop in idolatry and wife-coveting since the Ten Commandments went up.

Before the monument, Oklahomans routinely worshiped
idols while coveting the shit out out each other's wives.

Above: it's either the statue of
Baphomet or a standee from
Gamestop advertising Diablo III.

Look, obviously Reed was a jerk for smashing the thing and quite possibly unbalanced (he was taken in for a psychiatric evaluation) but could it be that there is an opportunity here to take a step back and re-think? In addition to The Satanic Temple and their crowdfunded Baphomet, other groups including The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and PETA have asked to put up their own religious monuments. Not necessarily because they feel they need to have their belief system immortalized in municipal art, but because they want to make the point that the Christians who put up the Ten Commandments don't get special treatment just because there's a lot of them in Oklahoma. Sooner or later a judge would have ruled in their favor and either the Commandments would have to go or the Capitol grounds would start filling up with everyone's sacred lawn art.

Satan and Michael Tate Reed Jr. might have given Oklahoma lawmakers the out they need. In response to the flood of me-toos, the State actually put a moratorium on new monuments, so if they stick to their guns and say they can't replace the Ten Commandments, they could save themselves a long, angry slog through the courts as well as a front yard full of deities which probably don't belong on Government property to begin with.

For the record, Moses also once smashed the
Ten Commandments but no one held him over for a psych evaluation.