It all started Monday, when the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation unveiled a winter solstice sign in the grand marble hallways around the Capitol Rotunda in Olympia.
The sign's atheistic message – reading in part that "Religion is but myth and superstition" – drew top billing on conservative commentator Bill O'Reilly's TV show.
Several days of angry messages to Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire followed, and Friday morning, someone removed the atheist sign and apparently hustled it out of the Capitol.
KMPS radio station in Seattle soon reported that an unidentified man had dropped off the pilfered placard, and the Washington State Patrol dispatched someone to pick it up.
Meanwhile, people flocked to the Capitol to check out the crime scene, set up their own protest signs and speak to a bank of TV news cameras jamming the hallway.
Among the crowd was James Pritchard of Seattle, who wore a pointy green hat and passed out candy-striped business cards proclaiming him "J. Elfus, Special Assistant to the Claus."
Despite his obvious preference for Christmas, Pritchard said he wants people to celebrate any holiday they like. But he was offended by the atheist message, which he felt was designed mostly to mock religion.
"I heard about what was going on down here, and we had to order a truckload of coal," he said.
And that was just the start.
Pastor Ken Hutcherson, a Christian preacher well-known in the region for his commentary on social issues, also arrived to put up a sign that flipped the atheist message into an affirmation of religion. Another small group put up a handmade poster reading, "The fool hath said in his heart, 'There is no God.'"
Several other parties submitted applications to state groundskeepers, seeking to display everything from a set of Nativity balloons to an aluminum Festivus pole – a homage to the invented "holiday for the rest of us" coined by the long-running comedy show "Seinfeld."
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