CINCINNATI (WAND) – An Ohio man is claiming religious discrimination after officials wouldn’t let him wear a colander in his driver’s license picture.
According to The Columbus Dispatch, Richard Steve Moser III was denied in several 2018 attempts to wear a pasta strainer at Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles locations. The colander is meant to represent the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which is a satirical organization.
Moser has the American Humanist Association on his side in the push to wear the strainer. He started a Facebook group in the Cincinnati area for Pastafarians, which has 200-plus members at this point.
“Every other religion, they’re allowed, so why shouldn’t I be?” he said in a conversation with the newspaper.
The Ohio BMV said in an Oct. 11 letter that a pasta strainer is only proper religious headwear for license pictures as “a head covering used in conjunction with a recognized religious purpose but only if usually and customarily worn whenever the person appears in public”.
The AHA said a Massachusetts woman gained the right in 2015 to wear a strainer for her driver’s license photo.
