ST PAUL, Minn. — Inside the Minnesota State Capitol, there are many signs of the holidays. Inside the rotunda, a Christmas tree greets those entering the building.
Down the hallway, carolers made up of lawmakers, pastors and Christians sing their reason for the season.
Next to them, though, is what they say is an unwanted guest.
"We have not come here to honor that," a speaker to the group said, pointing towards a display in the middle of the room.
"I think that the display is poorly timed, and it was done on purpose to be an offense to Christians," State Representative Jim Nash, R-48A, said.
That display is of a phoenix rising from the ashes, surrounded by paper cranes, underneath an upside-down pentagram. The display was put up by the Minnesota Satanists, and according to the group, is their first holiday display.
"I can't change the fact that that's here, I can lend my voice to the fact that I'm not on board with the message behind it," Nash, who spoke and prayed alongside others in the group of more than fifty, said.
"In a free country, the answer to one person's speech is another person's speech," State Representative Harry Niska, R-31A, said. "If you disagree with it, then express yourself."
"We celebrate as Minnesotans and Americans, that we're allowed to have differences of opinion and of religious practice, and it's all guaranteed and we can do it by the Constitution," Minnesota Satanists Congregation Leader Asmodeus Sion said. "The reason we put it up was for representation. We wanted to bring joy and beauty to the community, and tertiary to that, we wanted to express our First Amendment rights," Sion continued.
The group applied for a permit and was approved by the Minnesota Department of Administration, which handles the displays that go on inside the State Capitol building. The Minnesota Satanists display is set to run through next week.
The Department of Administration also said they approved a nativity scene as well.
That plurality of religions is key – and guaranteed by the First Amendment.
"The government cannot establish religion, it cannot discriminate against religion," Jane Kirtley, a professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota, said.
"If they're going to allow one display, then they have to allow others," Kirtley said. "As long as they conform with whatever permanent process the government has established that has to be done in a neutral way."
Kirtley says just like any other group, if they follow the rules, they have the right to display their religious symbols too.
"If there's any place that something like that should not be damned, it's got to be a public space where government operates, because our government is supposed to be the government of the people," she said. "That's all the people."