Enlightenment via a spaghetti strainer

Congrats are in order, it appears, to Sean Corbett.

This Chandler Uber driver has succeeded in what is apparently his life’s mission.

After two years of trying — two years of trying — he has succeeded in getting the state of Arizona to issue him a driver’s license that features a photo of him with a colander on his head. Yep. A colander. It seems Corbett is a devout “Pastafarian”

and, as such, believes he has the right to have his government ID feature his mug in all its kitchen-gizmo glory.

To do otherwise, he says, would be a violation of his religious beliefs.

“Pastafarianism is part of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which says the world was created 5,000 years ago by a flying spaghetti monster,” Corbett told KNXV-TV (Channel 15).

Who knew that the path to spiritual enlightenment runs through a spaghetti strainer?

Corbett took his crusade to several Motor Vehicle Division offices over the past two years until finally he found an office dumb enough to respect his “religious beliefs” and issue a license featuring Corbett in his colander.

“The whole process is intimidating, especially when people are yelling at you and scorning you for making a mockery out of their system,” he told Channel 15. “This has been this type of discrimination and religious persecution that I’ve been going through for the last couple of years.”

Generally speaking, your head must be bare in your driver’s-license photo, but most states, including Arizona, make exceptions for religious headgear. Corbett says his religion should be treated like every other religion, and if the MVD is going to let Muslims and Sikhs wear headgear, well, then it should let Pastafarians wear it, too.

The problem: A federal judge in Nebraska last year ruled that the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster — created in 2005 to fight the teaching of creationism in schools — isn’t a real religion.

This, after a prison inmate sued the state alleging religious discrimination because, unlike inmates of other religions, he wasn’t allowed to dress in religious garb (read: like a pirate) and was denied “Communion” (read: spaghetti and meatballs).

Arizona’s MVD, by the way, plans to void Corbett’s driver’s license. Naturally, he plans to sue.

“It’s kind of been a personal mission to keep pushing and not let the naysayers say I can’t,” he told a reporter.

While it’s unsettling to have the government declare what is and isn’t a religion, it’s difficult to seriously take up for a guy whose religion promises an afterlife featuring a beer volcano and a stripper factory.

Still, I’ve got to admire Corbett for the sacrifices he’s willing to make in the name of his “religion.”

I mean, seriously. If I called for an Uber and my driver showed up with a colander on his head, I know exactly what I’d say.

“Taxi?”