海角大神

If you can get a New Jersey vanity license plate that reads 鈥淏APTIST,鈥� why not one that reads 鈥�8THEIST鈥�?

That鈥檚 the question Shannon Morgan, a self-describe atheist, is asking in a lawsuit after the New Jersey department of motor vehicles denied her vanity plate application.

Her main complaint is a bureaucracy deeming that 鈥�8THEIST鈥� has connotations that offend 鈥済ood taste and decency,鈥� the bar which the state uses to judge the suitability of personalized plate messages. She also wants the state to adopt a more 鈥渧iewpoint-neutral鈥� vanity plate approval policy, since when she typed 鈥淏APTIST鈥� into the DMV application it was accepted.

Given that a joke is judged by the chuckle of the beholder, states have struggled in recent years to balance the innocent against the indecent when it comes to personal exhortations on state-owned license plates.

Plates such as 鈥淏AD HASS,鈥� 鈥淢ERLOT,鈥� 鈥淢PEACHW,鈥� 鈥淕OES211鈥漚nd 鈥淚SNOGOD鈥� have all been rescinded by various state DMVs after complaints were filed. Meanwhile, 鈥淎AAGH,鈥� 鈥淜 BYE鈥� and 鈥淭IKL ME鈥� are all fine. Americans take to vanity plates like flies to molasses, with some 10 million in circulation, meaning millions in extra revenue for the state. Ronald Reagan had his own California plate: 鈥淕IPPER.鈥�

But in the pantheon of questionable vanity plates, the atheist question runs deeper. Litigants in Utah and Florida have successfully fought back complaints about their 鈥淎THEIST鈥� plates. Standards of good taste run all over the place, though. Not long ago, a Virginia woman had to return a plate that read 鈥淗AISSEM,鈥� or 鈥渕essiah鈥� spelled backwards.

But the very process of a state board weighing free speech against good taste on plates presents tricky First Amendment problems, civil libertarians argue.

The New Jersey DMV vanity plate commission 鈥渉as a practice of denying personalized license plates that identify vehicle owners as atheists, thereby discriminating against atheist viewpoints and expressing a preference for theism over non-theism,鈥� Morgan鈥檚 lawsuit states.

An informal poll by a New Jersey newspaper suggested that Morgan has the people鈥檚 support, with three out of four respondents saying New Jersey should just give her a plate. (If not, as one commenter noted, Morgan should try to get one that says 鈥淛RZ SKS.鈥�)

For the most part vanity plates amount to little more than an unusual, and often enjoyable, collaboration between the state and the individual.

But when it comes to debates about the state鈥檚 involvement in speech and religion, Americans have from day one been ready to rumble.

鈥淚 am so happy that this woman is taking this to court,鈥� writes a commenter named John on NJ.com. 鈥淭he fact that I can get Lovegod, Jesus, Baptist, BornAGN etc as a license plate but can't get 8theist is absurd.鈥�