A Vehicle for Self-Expression? Not on These Roads.
By Marc Fisher
Sunday, November 4, 2007; Page C01
For 11 years, over nearly 200,000 miles, with the blessing of the state of Virginia, David Phillips has driven his Tracker with the "POOFTER" license plate, and nobody has complained -- not even when he parked at the British Embassy, where everybody knows "poofter" is British slang for a gay man.
"It's always a rolling good laugh for them," says Phillips, who is gay and chose his tags' message because "it's just an amusing word that I self-identify with."
David Phillips was told to return his license plate, which reads "POOFTER," after the special plates office deemed it "socially, racially or ethnically offensive or disparaging." (By Richard A. Lipski -- The Washington Post)
The commonwealth of Virginia is not amused. It gave Phillips his vanity plates in error, Carolyn Easley, coordinator of the special license plates office, wrote in a recent letter. "You may have grown fond of your personalized plates," but they are "socially, racially or ethnically offensive or disparaging" and "you must return them." There was no explanation for why it took Virginia 11 years to figure out what "poofter" means.
They'll have to pry those plates from Phillips's cold dead hands, or something like that. The 42-year-old Arlington County resident, who works as a computer consultant, says he's not sending back the tags, even if the state has generously provided a prepaid envelope for that purpose.
more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/03/AR2007110301111.html