Pastafarian student allowed to wear pasta strainer on head for driver’s license photo

A student at Texas Tech University appears to be the first American to have his driver’s license photo taken — and to successfully obtain a driver’s license — while wearing a pasta strainer on his head.

The student, Eddie Castillo, pulled off the stunt by claiming to practice Pastafarianism and belong to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, reports KLBK.

Castillo told DMV officials that the silver, metal pasta strainer is a religious symbol for him, and they bought it.

“Once she allowed me to put the pasta strainer on my head, I took the biggest, cheesiest smile I probably ever took,” he reminisced to the Lubbock CBS affiliate.
Pastafarianism is a satire. Its proponents seek to illustrate their belief that government should avoid promoting any single religion.

The purposefully preposterous religion originated in 2005, notes the Daily Mail. A guy named Bobby Henderson concocted it (along with the Spaghetti Monster, the belief that pirates are gods and much else) while he was fighting against the inclusion of intelligent design in Kansas public schools.
“It was created as a form of satire, but it shouldn’t be taken in a sense that discriminates or disassociates other religions, and it should be looked at as a political symbol for the separation between church and state,” Castillo explained.
As KLBK notes, Castillo isn’t the first person in the United States to try such antics.

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