The Colander: A Piece of Cookware or Headwear?

Spaghetti is a commonly enjoyed dinner, but some people love it more than others. Although this would apply to Buddy the Elf, I am actually referencing a group of faith. The group of faith, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, came to public attention in 2005, and demonstrates an interesting aspect in the argument of the freedom of religion. One of the main issues where the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) has come to legal issues is in their desire to where colanders on their head in photos taken to be used on their driver’s licenses. However, the issue has less to deal with this specific desire, and more of what honoring this desire could do in other regards.

The simple backstory to the FSM’s wishes is based on the fact that they believe if any religious garments are allowed in some driver’s license photos, then they should be allowed in all driver’s license photos, regardless of religion. When first being challenged, the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) only recognized the exceptions for the Christian, Jewish, Sikh, and Muslim communities in most states. As previously stated, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster found it unfair to allow exemptions to these communities while not allowing their members, known as pastafarians, to wear a colander on their head for their photo. Therefore, the main question posed is as follows, does one religion, however unconventional it may seem to outsiders, deserve to be treated differently than another?

In the wording of the First Amendment, it is made clear that there should be no establishment of religion, thus shifting the question to defining the meaning of “establishment”? Many would argue, and I would agree, that by allowing certain religions to be receive preferential treatment compared to other religions, you are in fact violating the terms of the First Amendment in advancing a select group. In this aspect of the issue, I would side with the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster as one can see where the law has not been equitable in its application of Constitutional Rights.

However, a key issue that needs to be addressed in this argument would be deciding where the line is to be drawn. As with many issues dealing with religion and the law, this debate is susceptible to the slippery slope argument due to how allowing religions to be excused from certain laws could lead to exemptions being made that are unnecessary or even dangerous. In order to discuss this aspect, one must understand why these rules of appearance are created for DMV photos. One effective way to see this would be to look back to when a major change occurred in some states a few years ago. Occurring after the issue of terrorists acquiring legal documents, such as licenses, when their face failed to be detected by facial recognition scanners. As a way to combat this issue, DMVs adjusted their policy to not allow smiling in driver’s license photos. When questioned on this policy, the answer given was that when the candidate smiled excessively, they were able to distort their face enough to pass through facial recognition without matching to the database. This clearly poses a risk to society as a whole as it puts key documents in potentially dangerous hands.

Therefore, when evaluating whether exceptions should be made to the rules governing license photos, you must consider whether the exemptions would pose a risk to society. This could become an issue if a faith emerged that held a strong belief in always smiling, something most would consider an innocent belief to most in a daily sense. In theory, based on the treatment of other faiths, the non-stop smile faith should be able to smile in their driver’s license photos. However, as previously outlined, the ability to smile in your driver’s license photo could jeopardize the safety of other American citizens. With this example, you can see how a group with a certain belief who may not seek to harm others would be curtailed because of possible outcomes, a possibly unfair situation.

However, to justify allowing certain religions exemptions from the law, you would need to be able to justify why some religions are not exempt. This is where the slippery-slope argument comes in. Is it fair to justify some exemptions for photos, such as wearing a colander on your head, but not others, something as simple as smiling. The slippery slope argument would say that if you allow the first set of actions, you would need to allow whatever comes after it that uses the same argument. Although some believe that it would be reasonable to draw the line at the point when it crosses the line of endangering the public, I believe that this would unnecessarily punish certain faiths that mean no harm. Given the example of the always smiling faith, you can understand where you would be faced with issues where innocent beliefs are being punished due to the fact that some may use it to their advantage to harm others. Simply stated, I believe that if you allow certain religions exemption from the DMV photo requirements, as it currently is with certain groups of faith, you must allow other groups, such as the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s wish to wear colanders on their head. However, I think that the idea of exemptions from these guidelines in general needs to be revisited as they pose the possibility of harming society if they are continued to be allowed.