It doesn't matter how many articles of clothing Phelan Moonsong puts on each day: If he's not wearing his favourite pair of goat horns, the Pagan priest might as well be naked.
The beloved horns are rarely far from the Millinocket, Maine, man's scalp when he's not sleeping.
It's been that way since he first laid eyes on the horns at a Pagan men's group gathering in 2009. He took the horns home, drilled small holes in each one and attached them to his forehead using fishing line.
"As a practicing Pagan minister and a priest of Pan, I've come to feel very attached to the horns, and they've become a part of me and part of my spirituality," Moonsong, 56, said. "The horns are part of my religious attire."
In August, Moonsong said, officials at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles in Bangor told him that he would need to remove the horns to receive a state-issued ID. When he tried to explain the horns were his "spiritual antenna" - they were not moved. Moonsong said he sent the state a essay explaining the importance of his horns. Though he didn't realise it at the time, Moonsong had joined a religious freedom battle that is being fought in DMV offices around the US.
