Bob CollinsNot happy with how your driver’s license picture looks?
It could be worse.
That’s Lindsay Miller of Massachusetts who just won a battle to be allowed to wear a colander on her head.
She’s a member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which, according to WCVB in Boston, believes that “heaven is a place with a ‘beer volcano’ and ‘stripper factory.'”
Anyone can be a member of the church and be ordained for $25.
The Registry of Motor Vehicles — also known as “hell” in Massachusetts — had denied her insistence on the headgear because people aren’t allowed to wear hats for their driver’s license photos unless it’s for safety or religious reasons.
But the American Humanist Association stepped in to argue that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is a religion and the Registry demurred.
“The First Amendment applies to every person and every religion, so I was dismayed to hear that Lindsay had been ridiculed for simply seeking the same freedoms and protections afforded to people who belong to more traditional or theistic religions,” said Miller’s attorney, Patty DeJuneas, a member of the Secular Legal Society.
“As a member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I feel delighted that my Pastafarianism has been respected by the Massachusetts RMV. While I don’t think the government can involve itself in matters of religion, I do hope this decision encourages my fellow Pastafarian Atheists to come out and express themselves as I have,” Miller said in a written statement.
