Satanic Temple Unveils Monument Design

[Angrboda]

... Pastafarians, another fake religion that pretends to worship a deity called the Flying Spaghetti Monster, get some of their licks in, as well. Recently, Christopher Schaeffer, a minister in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, was elected to the Pomfret, N.Y. town council. He insisted on being sworn in wearing a colander on his head, a clear mockery of the various religious rites that are used to swear people into office .... [M]ost governments will let you swear in with any religious tradition you want, which is why Schaeffer was allowed to do the colander stunt in the first place. Still, the prank makes an important point about how, even with the religious tolerance built into the swearing-in ceremony, the ceremony still reinforces the idea that religious beliefs should play an important part of one’s role as a politician. That alone should trouble us, because ideally, leaders of a secular society would leave their religious beliefs at the door and choose to govern not by religious faith, but by reason and an interest in representing all their constituents, regardless of belief, equally.

After all, most of us are hired for jobs and do those jobs without anyone mentioning our religious beliefs at all, because they are irrelevant to the work we do. Why then do politicians in a supposedly secular government have to make a fuss over their religion right from the beginning? Wouldn’t be better if everyone just made a secular promise to do their jobs properly, putting them all on the same page?

(emphasis mine)