When I first saw this mentioned over at Ars Technica, my reaction was, oh, hey, another conservative judge deciding that only Judeo-Christian religions are ‘real’. But after reading over the decision, I have to say, the guy has me persuaded.

This is not a question of theology: it is a matter of basic reading comprehension. The FSM Gospel is plainly a work of satire, meant to entertain while making a pointed political statement. To read it as religious doctrine would be little different from grounding a “religious exercise” on any other work of fiction. A prisoner could just as easily read the works of Vonnegut or Heinlein and claim it as his holy book, and demand accommodation of Bokononism or the Church of All Worlds…Of course, there are those who contend—and Cavanaugh is probably among them—that the Bible or the Koran are just as fictional as those books. It is not always an easy line to draw. But there must be a line beyond which a practice is not “religious” simply because a plaintiff labels it as such. The Court concludes that FSMism is on the far side of that line.

If I were to try to argue that I was a “Pastafarian” and entitled to religious protection for it, this argument would have me bowing my head and mumbling an apology for wasting the court’s time. Since I’m certainly aware that FSM is a satirical statement, I can’t claim to at the same time believe in it as a religion.

It’s funny that (if you accept the court’s argument) this puts the Flying Spaghetti Monster and Pastafarianism at a disadvantage to Judeo-Christian religions specifically because of the effectiveness of the parody. If the humor wasn’t quite so broad, it would be much easier to argue that it was ‘believable’. Though I suppose that getting equal protection as a religion is exactly the opposite of what the FSM was created to do–skewer the concept of (and protection of) established religion–and so its creators are probably not too unhappy about the plaintiff losing this case…

Also, it’s hard not to love a judicial opinion which quotes Vonnegut and Heinlein.

filed under equal-protection-from-his-noodly-appendage