Spaghetti Strainer Helmet Driver's License Photo Approved On Religious Grounds (immortal.org)

PolygamousRanchKid writes with the news (widely reported, here an excerpt from the story as carried by Immortal News) that [i]n the Massachusetts city of Lowell, a woman identifying herself as a follower of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM), otherwise known as Pastafarianism, has been approved by the state's Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) to wear a spaghetti strainer on top of her head in her state issued driver's ID. The approval to wear the helmet was initially denied. However, citing religious grounds, Lowell resident Lindsay Miller filed an appeal. Following intervention by the American Humanist Association's Appignani Humanist Legal Center, the RMV reversed their decision and allowed her to put on her colander and get her driver's license picture taken. According to the church's website, while there are those who perceive the religion to be satirical in nature, it "doesn't change the fact that by any standard one can come up with" the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is "as legitimate as any other" religion. Asks PolygamousRanchKid: "Now what about my tinfoil hat . . . ?"

Comments

Re:Athiest Symbol

[AK Marc]

Drivers licenses did not always have pictures on them. We have become the enemy we once mocked.

It was our parents generation that screwed it up. They abused the pictureless licenses, passing them amongst friends and faking them. So when they got in power, they changed the rules and laws to what we have today. The hippies grew up into fascists, and blamed their children for their actions.

The little things

[Okian Warrior]

Later if the person gets stopped for a traffic violation and isn't wearing their spaghetti strainer, that should be grounds to investigate and charge them with fraud if it were a sham.

And why is this? Why should the DMV care, why should the police be on the lookout for this, and why should society embroil someone's life in the legal system over something that has no effect on anyone, whatsoever?

People seem to think that we need to uphold some sort of justice against the *intent* of some rule or another(*).

Why bother? Can't we just let little things go?

(*) The one that comes to mind first is the "If you can't be bothered to vote, you can't comment on the voting proceedings", but there are others. People seem caught up in enforcing some sort of "just universe", and take it to absurd extremes.

Re:Athiest Symbol

[Aighearach]

And of course the counter point is that it is illegal for a police officer to order you to remove religious attire, (they would need a court order even if they have a compelling interest) so for the purpose of identification prior to any probable cause for an invasive search they have a hard time showing that the attire is not included in what they have to identify. If they can't tell her to take it off, how is having a picture of the naked skin underneath going to assist in identification? If they were requiring the license to have electronic biometric data, such as a fingerprint, and to provide that to the officer for scanning, that would clearly be legal. And since measures like that are possible, that don't violate the known and bona fide religious restrictions, then that is what they would have to do under the traditional requirement of taking the least suppressive action when balancing against 1st amendment concerns.

The main reason there isn't extensive case law and precedent here is that most women with a religious prohibition for covering their faces are not allowed by their husbands to drive. Generally speaking, if her family lets her drive they're usually going to let her just wear a hijab, which leaves the face uncovered. And the other reason, biometrics are new, even in the case of fingerprints where it is new that the police could do that using a non-invasive scanner, and have a digital version stored in the license. I don't think there are any recent cases that explored the actual alternatives that the government has and how that affects the required balancing.

Re:Athiest Symbol

[AndyKron]

Study: Packages Sealed with ‘Atheist’ Tape 10 Times More Likely to Disappear http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/...

Pastafarianism protects other religions' rights

[billstewart]

I'm a Christian, and Pastafarianism is mocking aspects of people who share my general corner of the religious world, and I'm just fine with that. Not only do some of my fellow believers sometimes act in ways that deserve mocking, we often do it ourselves (at least friendly mocking.) And more importantly, by doing things like this, Pastafarians are protecting other minority religious beliefs and practices. The US Army still hasn't quite figured out how to cope with Sikhs wearing turbans (and sometimes they even have trouble with Orthodox Jews, even army chaplains, because they violate critical military doctrines about gentlemen not wearing hats indoors), the TSA harassed them because they're different even before they decided to start harassing other hat-wearers, schools don't let students wear head-scarves (or mini-skirts) because that's Not How Proper American Girls Dress, Muslim-hating idiots beat up Sikhs, the list goes on.

I attended Quaker meetings for a few years, and we'd occasionally get the question about those hats the oatmeal-box guy wears. Quakerism came from England, where it's beastly cold and rainy and Anglos are prone to male pattern baldness, and moved to Pennsylvania and New England where it's also beastly cold and rainy much of the year, and many of them believed in wearing plain durable clothing instead of wearing flashy stuff to draw attention to themselves. But English social custom and legal practice was big on forcing lower-class people to acknowledge the importance of higher-class people, and taking off hats to your betters (especially government officials and nobility) was a big part of that, and Quakerism believes very radically in equality, so Quakers would often get thrown in jail for not taking off their hats around their betters. I wear hats to keep my head warm (as an Anglo who went bald early), and when my beard was longer I could pass for Orthodox if I was wearing a dark suit and a hat.

Back when the TSA were new, they didn't make people take off hats or coats in security lines, but out here at San Jose airport, the main people who wore them were Mexicans wearing cowboy hats heading down to Mexico, and the TSA were the white guys who'd replaced the previous mostly-immigrant screeners, and they decided to make a local rule telling the Mexicans to take their hats off. My first reaction was "if they tried this at LaGuardia the Hasidim would been in the mayor's office in an hour telling him to fire the bigot who thought up that nonsense", but as a Quaker I felt I ought to argue with them because they're clearly just doing it to bully people, and I was successful at making it difficult for them to avoid the bigotry issue for a while.

Re:Athiest Symbol

[Barsteward]

There is nothing rational about religion and this is just a parody of religion. Whats rational about wearing an instrument of torture/death (crucifix) around your neck or a turban on your head or a burka etc etc

More people should have their photo taken with a colander on their head to highlight the absurdity of religious symbols.