Tapping the Vain 

On April 20, 2004, Vermonter Shawn Byrne applied for the license plate “JN36TN,” a thinly veiled reference to the Bible verse John 3:16. According to court records, the Department of Motor Vehicles denied Byrne’s request on the grounds that it violated Vermont’s ban on personalized, or “vanity,” plates that refer to deities or religions. By law, messages must “avoid disruption and distraction of drivers through controversial plates,” as well as “the perception that the government favors certain ideas.”

Byrne challenged the state’s decision in U.S. District Court, and lost. But in October, the U.S. Court of Appeals, in Byrne v. Rutledge, reversed the lower court’s decision and ruled in Byrne’s favor. It deemed that “Vermont’s ban on all religious messages in a forum it has otherwise broadly opened to a wide variety of subjects, including personal philosophy, affiliation and belief, serves not to restrict but instead to discriminate … and, as such, is impermissible.”

While upholding Byrne’s right of free speech, the second circuit court judges didn’t go so far as to strike down the state’s ban on all controversial messages, including any that are vulgar, derogatory or obscene, or connote illicit drug use.

Interestingly, what’s OK to drivers on the right — NRA, LUVGUNS, G0P, PR0NUKE — still might be considered “controversial” to drivers on the left — CH0ICE, DM0CRAT, LEFTIST, LESSOIL, TREHUGR. And vice versa. All of these, by the way, can be seen on current Vermont plates.

Moreover, words and their meanings change over time. It used to be that getting a “hummer” in a public parking lot could get you arrested. Today, a Hummer just pisses off the drivers with the LESSC02 and PEAK0IL plates.

Which begs the question: What else has slipped by the DMV’s censors? A review of the state’s 35,860 vanity plates (as of September 3) turned up other phrases that might raise eyebrows — and not just spiritual references such as KRISHNA, MUHAMAD, LTADAYS, PRAY, PSALM24, PSALM46, SHAKTI and 0HHMM.