Note from the editor: Edger columnist Chris Ray is on unpaid leave this month pending the results of an investigation into allegations of defamation of religion. His columns for December will be written by guest contributer Rev. Thor M’Glarven Krandok, high priest of the Dark Dungeons Coven in Sasquatutcha, Maine.

My my my, what’s all this to-do in Washington State then? Seems as though religionists of all stripes are getting in on this game of turning public property into the personal playgrounds of Papists and pulpiteers of all stripes. First this Solstice-stealing Christ cult got its little “nativity” scene, complete with its glorification of spoiling your brats with material goods (way to go, Wise Men, now he’ll think he’s God for the rest of his life), then those un-Covened materialists like Dan Barker and his anti-Fraega “Freedom From Religion Foundation” got their smarmy little anti-mythology placard (promptly exorcised by the Jesusites), and now yet another competing orthodoxy of these Christonians wants in on the game. Jumping judicial review, it looks like the Washington State Capitol building is as crowded as Ted Haggard’s asshole these days!

I have spent too many years completing online geomancy correspondence courses just to let an opportunity like this slip away again. I missed the Dot-Com bubble, the real estate bubble, and even the World of Warcraft gold-farming bubble, but by Aleister Crowley’s ridiculous necromancer costume I am sure as shaggoth not missing the Everybody Gets to Fuck with Washington State’s Free Exercise Statutes bubble. That’s right: I, the Reverend Thor M.G. Krandok, high priest of the Dark Dungeons Coven of Sasquatutcha, Maine, am officially getting in on this business of making Washington State into my personal religious battleground.

How? By doing what apparently everybody else in this damn un-Covened nation does: requesting that the Governor of Washington, Chris Gregoire, personally set aside a space for my favorite provincial tribalism:

Getting the government to pay attention to us traditional-values pre-Christian pagans has always been something of an uphill battle, and I hoped that it wouldn’t have to come down to riding the coattails of a bunch of squabbling anti-witchcraft bullies, but hey, I’m tired of trying to get attention just by ritually gargling goat’s blood to curry the favor of Thor Himself. The message reads: “I’m writing on behalf of all of the long-oppressed pagans, witches, warlocks, and orthodox System of a Down fans of America to request space for a donated Solstice sign on the Washington State Capitol. Our placard will read: “Drink-sodden orgy: the reason for the season.” Please reply to the above mailing address.”

That’ll rattle their Elune-rejecting, anti-Solstice bigoted Christ-cult asses, sure enough. And of course, if we don’t get what we want, we’ll do what any self-respecting spurned practicing pagan master of the dark arts with additional competency in Word and Excel would do: hex the living shit out of them.