'So a guy walks into the BMV wearing goat horns...stop me if you've heard this one.'
No, really. He did.
It's not a joke, but it should be.
Phelan Moonsong, 56 years old and a self- procalimed pagan 'priest', entered the Bangor, Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles office to obtain a state identification card...while wearing goat horns strapped to his head, held in place by fishing line. After telling a clerk what he needed, Moonsong was told he'd have to remove his horns; BMV policy states customers cannot wear any head covering for their operator's license or state I.D. photos...with exceptions.
One of those exceptions is for religious reasons.
Moonsong, who considers the horns his 'religious head dress', refused to remove them; the BMV clerk took his photo anyway, but said Moonsong would have to provide documentation to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles where the wearing of the goat horns was required before his identification could be released.
It seems a member of the 'priest of Pan' men's group had given the horns to Moonsong in 2009 after the member's goat had died, a gift Moonsong deems his 'spiritual antennae' and part of his religious attire. That being the case, Moonsong sent Maine's Secretary of State a personal letter requesting the exemption, along with a pamphlet concerning diversity training for pagan religions. When Moonsong didn't hear back from the Secretary's office, he called them...and invoked the ACLU card.
In my world, 'ACLU' stands for American Crybaby Liberals Union. That wasn't the case for Maine's BMV, however; even though their photo guidelines state that religious headwear must be '...required and does not obstruct or shadow...' the person's face, they issued his state identification card a few days later.
In other words: they buckled. They gave in. They folded. The operative word in their guidelines is 'required'; the BMV should have demanded pagan organizational documentation that Moonsong's horns are mandatory head gear, that he can't practice paganism without their utilization.
But they didn't.
Instead, they gave in. I'm sure Maine's BMV will state that they wanted to avoid costly litigation and thus save the state's taxpayers some money. They issued the card to Moonsong ( not his birth name; he legally changed it this past summer ) without the hint of a whimper and then scurried away, collective tails between their legs.
The American circus rolls on.
