Epress.am News from Armenia
An Austrian has won the right to be photographed wearing a pasta strainer for his driving license on the grounds of religious freedom, reports The Telegraph.
Niko Alm announced the decision on his blog, saying that, after three years of struggle, a psychologist had passed him fit to drive and so he could wear the kitchen implement for the picture ID.
Alm, who calls himself a “pastafarian,” said he belonged to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which lampooned religion.
“Today I was able to get my new driving licence, and in it you can clearly see that I’m wearing a colander on my head to demonstrate my allegiance to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster,” Alm wrote in his blog.
“My headwear has now been recognized by the Republic of Austria.”
The spaghetti church was founded in 2005 in opposition to pressure on the Kansas school board in the United States to teach the theory of intelligent design in biology classes as an alternative to evolution. It has engaged in a light-hearted campaign against religion ever since.
Pastafarians claim the world was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but, because the monster was inebriated at the time, it was a flawed design.