During a "Sunshine Meeting" in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, Chester County Pastafarians asked local officials to allow their church to take part in the Chester County Historic Courthouse's annual holiday display.
Tracy McPherson of Thornbury, Penn., who called herself a minister of the Evangelical Pastafarian Church, told the commissioners that her religion's pasta-covered pine tree should be allowed next to a Jewish Menorah and Christian Nativity scene, according to Raw Story.
"These symbols represent the meaning of the holiday season for two religious communities in our area," McPherson said during the meeting. "I could not help but feel that the display was incomplete, as there was no acknowledgement of my religion present.”
As the Telegraph notes, Pastafarianism was founded in 2005 by Bobby Henderson, whose mocking letter to the Kansas Board of Education regarding its acceptance of creationism in public schools grew into a movement with deities and a religious Facebook page dedicated to "spreading the tasty goodness of His Noodliness throughout the world."
“As a Pastafarian, I believe the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the world and all that is in it,” McPherson told the Chester County commissioners. “He holds us all to the ground with his noodly appendages and that explains why we do not float away.”
McPherson also explained that the winter holiday was of great importance to Pastafarians, "as it coincides with our primary holiday, which is called Holiday,” she said. “It is a time of joyful feasting, with unlimited pasta and grog, the favored drink of our Lord.”
In 2010, Chester County commissioners voted 2-1 to change its policies regarding holiday displays at the Historic Courthouse. While previously private organizations such as the Freethought Society, the Pennsylvania Pastors Network, the Chabad of Chester County and the Greater West Chester Chamber of Commerce were allowed to put up displays, now the commissions would be in charge of the lawn decorations, the Delaware Daily Times reports.
Ultimately, however, McPherson's appeals did not move the commission, which on Thursday morning voted to keep 2010's Resolution 58-10. The resolution essentially excludes non-Judeo-Christian winter displays like the Pastafarian's noodle tree from the courthouse grounds, the Examiner notes.
McPherson said she was “now exploring my legal options.”
Pastafarians were also stopped from putting up displays on the Leesburg, Va., courthouse lawn this year after the Board of Supervisors voted to ban unattended public displays in favor of a more traditional, county-sponsored one.