'Pastafarian' wins religious freedom right to wear pasta strainer for driving license
By Matthew Day, Warsaw, 13 Jul 2011
An Austrian has won the right to be photographed wearing a pasta strainer for his driving license on grounds of religious freedom.
Niko Alm announced the decision on his blog saying that after three years of struggle a psychologist had concluded that he is fit to drive and so he could wear the kitchen implement for the official picture.
A self-styled "pastafarian", Mr Alm said he belongs to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which lampoons religion. "Today I was able to get my new driving license, 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," Mr 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 the pressure on the Kansas school board in the United States to teach the theory of intelligent design in biology class as an alternative to evolution, and since then it has engaged in a light-hearted campaign against religion.
Key to the beliefs of pastafarians is that the world was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but owing to the monster being inebriated at the time of creation, it has a flawed design.
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