"No Gods" Vanity Plate Rejected

[Ian David]

Posted by Hemant Mehta in FFRF, General, Lawsuits on June 30th, 2009 | 28 Comments

Jason lives in Indiana, home of the “In God We Trust” license plates.

He applied for a personalized license plate reading NO GODS. Take a wild guess what happened…

Rejected.

Why? It was deemed inappropriate. According to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles:

Personalized license plates allow creativity; however, under Indiana Statue IC 9-18-15-4 (b) the BMV may refuse to issue a combination of letters or numerals, or both, that carry a connotation offensive to good taste and decency.

The BMV will deny a personalized license plate request if an objective, reasonable person would find that the customer’s proposed expression on the personalized license plate application is determined to carry a connotation offensive to good taste and decency, is misleading, or is otherwise prohibited.

<snip>

He’s already contacted the ACLU in Indiana and FFRF. Sounds like he has a case, no?

More:
http://friendlyatheist.com/2009/06/30/is-a-no-gods-license-plate-offensive/

[TransitJohn]

1. Definitely sounds as if he has a case.

"No Gods" isn't offensive to good taste or decency.

[Ian David]

3. I once saw a license plate, "B SAVED" that I found offensive.

Now, I have no problem with "Saved" or "I M Saved" but I took "B SAVED" to be presuming to tell ME what I should do.

So, when the woman with that license plate pulled alongside me, I mouthed the words, "Fuck You" to her and gave her my best "I'm imagining I can make your ears bleed with this look" stare.

She literally started jumping around inside her car, flailing her arms, and looked like she was fighting off a swarm of unsaved bees.

Oh, wait.

What if her name is Belinda Saved?

[realisticphish]

2. Definitely

seems open and shut to me

[semillama]

4. For crying out loud, it could even be a selective quote

from the First Commandment: "I am the Lord Thy God; You shall have no other gods before me." Jeez!

[onager]

5. Related story from Florida, 2002

Steven Miles has tooled around Gainesville for 16 years with a license plate that says "ATHEIST."

To Miles, it is a form of self-expression, one he is happy to spend a few extra dollars every year to keep.

But to the state of Florida, the tag is "obscene or objectionable," according to a letter Miles received last month from the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. That puts the personalized plate on the department's blacklist, right up there with epithets, expletives and words describing certain body parts.

http://www.sptimes.com/2002/03/14/State/_ATHEIST__plate_raise.shtml

[csziggy]

6. But the DMV changed their mind when he threatened to go to the ACLU

ATHEIST tag wins reprieve

The brouhaha over the tag has provoked the agency to form a committee to review all potentially banned tags.

Prompted by complaints, the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles declared last month that the tag was "obscene or objectionable," and ordered Steven Miles to ship it back.

Miles called the American Civil Liberties Union instead.

After a story about the recall appeared in Thursday's St. Petersburg Times, a DMV spokesman said department higher-ups had reversed a supervisor's decision to cancel the tag.

The DMV will now form a committee to review all tags "that fall into a gray area" before they are yanked, said spokesman Robert Sanchez. He said the "ATHEIST" tag would have qualified for committee review.

http://sptimes.com/2002/03/15/TampaBay/ATHEIST_tag_wins_repr.shtml