The struggle for Pastafarian acceptance continues, in Illinois. From the Chicago Tribue:
College student Rachel Hoover, of Arlington Heights, went to get her license renewed at the Illinois Secretary of State facility in Schaumburg. She told employees that she wanted to wear a metal colander on her head for the photo in honor of her religious beliefs. Employees balked, but Hoover insisted.
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But when the central office discovered that employees had relented and allowed Hoover to be photographed with the strainer on her head, administrators drew the line, even though her face was clearly visible.
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They told Hoover her license will be revoked July 29 unless she gets a new, strainer-free photo taken.
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State officials are “just trying to use a little common sense,” secretary of state spokesman Dave Druker told Tribune freelance reporter Lee V. Gaines. “It almost looks like Pastafarians are a mockery of religion.”
During a time when people are doing reprehensible things in the Name of Religion, I wonder why officials are hassling us, out of all religious groups. Do these officials prevent people from wearing Yamulkes or Hijabs or Turbans — and if not, is it because they appear to have such earnest beliefs, and Pastafarians do not take themselves so seriously?
If Pastafarians had more scary dogmatic True-Believers, would we encounter less resistance to the privileges other religious groups are granted?
While I don’t agree with the Chicago Tribune’s stance that FSM is a “broad spoof”, I found the article well written and clever — it’s worth the read and can be found here.
Australians are interesting — the people are clearly enlightened and have a sense of humor but, at the same time, we hear stories of bureaucratic resistance to Pastafarianism coming from Australia more than just about anywhere. I’ve heard of several denied attempts at getting an Australian ID card colander’ed photo. So I was extra pleased to hear that Marcus had pulled it off. Here’s the full article in TheAge about how it went down.
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Every small victory adds to the weight of legitimacy. Each wedding officiated by an FSM Minister and each ID photo taken while wearing Pastafarian headgear (and so on) is an implicit acknowledgement by a government worker that Pastafarianism is a bonafide religious organization. Over time, I imagine there will be less resistance to what we’re doing — it’ll become clear that we’re not mocking anyone’s beliefs, only fighting for our own idea of what religion is about, and making a stand against religious inequality.
Also, on the topic of Australia — I want to give props to the Australia Church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster. This group is incredibly well organized and engaged in promoting Pastafarianism as a legitimate religion — and they are doing amazing things in ongoing court battles. I would urge anyone in the area to check them out and get involved.
