First, there was a Festivus pole.

Then on Monday the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Atheists, Humanists and Agnostics group placed a “Flying Spaghetti Monster” among the holiday displays inside Wisconsin’s Capitol.

Any group that submits an application to Capitol police can erect a display in accordance with the First Amendment ban on state establishment of religion, according to the Associated Press.

The student group’s “pastafarian” deity was represented in the rotunda by a poster that proclaims the monster “boiled for your sins!”

“This is the problem of allowing religious symbols to be displayed in government buildings,” the student group wrote on its website. “When the State decided to turn the Capitol into an open forum, they opened the floodgates which the Flying Spaghetti Monster just sailed through. We would much prefer to keep government buildings free from all religious (and irreligious) messages, but if it must be “anything goes,” we hope everyone takes advantage of this opportunity to advertise their own viewpoints – no matter how silly.”

Residents of Tallahassee, Fla. last week also sought to make a political statement about the separation between church and state by erecting a Festivus pole out of beer cans.

Images via Atheists, Humanists & Agnostics at UW-Madison

[h/t Huffington Post]