The sample version of the Confederate Heritage plate
This week, the Sons of Confederate Veterans scored what they deemed a “major victory” when a district court judge refused to throw out a lawsuit against the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles.
The suit, which was filed last January after two years of inaction by the Florida legislature, upholds the group’s first amendment right to have a “Confederate Heritage” plate issued by the DMV.
“We followed all the procedures, paid the fees required by the state, and did absolutely everything that was required by law,” John Adams, Chairman of the Confederate Heritage Plate Committee of the Sons Of Confederate Veterans, told WESH Orlando, “and the politicians in the Florida Legislature failed to follow their own statutes. Now it appears that parts or all of those statutes may be stricken by the federal court as an unconstitutional infringement of First Amendment rights.”
While I’m sure the debate about vanity license plates has raged since the first metal stamped version appeared in West Virginia in 1906 (LVMYCUZ), we’ll start with the 2000 ruling in Oregon that forbade auto references to alcohol, tobacco or drugs.
That appeals court edict kept a retired wine merchant from receiving vanity plates that read ‘VINO’, ‘INVINO’ and ‘WINE’.
But while there are many instances of courts allowing ‘offensive’ and ‘off-color’ bumper stickers, expressing yourself in six or seven letters under the watchful eye of state government doesn’t meet with the same success.
Utah, for example, has banned more than 1,000 applications for vanity plates, some innocuous (1PIRATE - denied due to ‘public welfare’ concerns), others mild (BGBOOTY - deemed vulgar), and a number of the in-your-face variety (GOTWOOD and CAMLTOE, although the latter was prohibited for ethnic reasons and not sexual reference).
Vermont faced a couple of lawsuits resulting from vanity plate rulings. A headmaster of a Christian school sued for the right to display ROMANS5 on his vehicle, and an appeals court heard a case in which the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles demanded the return of a plate that read SHTHPNS.
While the state claimed the lettering could be deemed offensive, lawyers argued the jumble simply meant, “Shout Happiness.”
In Colorado, the ACLU jumped into the fray when the state denied a female citizen – one proud of her vegan lifestyle – a vanity plate that read ILVTOFU.
“It could have a sexual connotation,” was the stance taken by the state, when in reality the young woman was just displaying her affection for tofu.
While the Florida case does not revolve around self-expression, it does involve a specialty plate that, much like touting your alma mater or charitable organization, promotes an affiliation – in this instance, a link to the controversy of rebel flags, slave states, and a war of secession.
And given the tumult caused by state house flag displays, historical memorials and other Old South symbolism, it remains yet another test on just how much freedom is left in our right of free speech.
At least a Virginia court ruled the state had no cause to revoke the GOVTSUX plates a motorist so proudly displayed.
Now that’s a vanity plate we could all GTBHIN.
STRANGE NEWS on the web and on the radio! Listen to J. Doug every Wednesday at 11:30 a.m. on THE SHARI ELLIKER SHOW on 1090 AM in Baltimore or at WBAL.COM
Comments
Let's have Gay Pride and Black Power tags too, then.
I wonder if South Africa has a "Dutch Pride' license plate.
Welcome to Flori-duh.
Strange news, indeed.
With all the rampant ignorance about what the CSA was about, and the history of the flag since, if/when the tag becomes a reality, the money the tag would raise can go toward educational programs to tell our side of the story, which deserves to be heard.
Most Americans have only heard/learned the winners side. Has anyone ever wondered what the Vietnamese teach their people about their war with us? Ever wondered how the British explained to their children back in the very early 1800's how the U.S. came about? Or, even, how it is explained today? Or how Mexico explains to her children about how Texas came to be, or how they lost all of the American southwest to us? You can believe none of them tell the same story we do.
So, it is fair that we get the funds to start educational programs to tell the Confederate's side of the story. We appeal to the American citisen's sense of fair play. This is only right.
I am all for the confederate tags.
It will serve as a "Stupid Stamp".
That's how I spot morons before the even open their mouths'
It’s really unbelievable that the South after 140 years is still undergoing the pangs and strains of Reconstruction by the Northern controlled Federal Government. Not only in our schools but they speak and control Southerners via their Northern sons and daughters who move down South and impose their Yankee values on what they think is an ignorant band of Southerners. They call us rebels and racist when the cause of the incorrectly named “Civil War” wasn’t over the slavery issue at all. Yankee’s try and remember this! The Southern States seceded over states rights and over the Federal Governments drift away from the Constitution. And it wasn’t a “Civil War” because the South withdrew from the United States. It was the War of Northern Aggression. End of history lesson.
Gregory Kalof
As far as I am concerned, the South had legal right to secede. And the North's win of THEIR war,...and then going to take over state governments in the south, are only more illegal acts of a tyrrany.
As far as ANY southerner who has been born and raised here, we know and feel the truth of the whole matter. Which is that we are STILL under occupation from a foreign country.
We DID secede. Didn't try. Did.
Then you came in with guns and won your little war.
And in 2009, all of you morons up North who thought the South was wrong is fed up with Washington DC. Hypocrites.
Remember,..the South WAS right. All along!!
Fly those confederate flags high and proud!! It represents the only TRUE believers of TRUE democracy the nation has ever experienced!!
well i am southeren and not stupid redneck but the tags are a great idea it helps me to remember my grandfather who fought and gave me something to believe in.
And why is this in strange news? I don't think it's fitting. There's nothing strange about the Confederate Battle Flag.
This is ABSOLUTELY why we should stop these dumb vanity plates and just go back to the one 1970s era Orange lettered plate on white background with "SUNSHINE STATE" only of my youth.
Its about time for a Florida confederate plate. for all you who don't like it "KISS MY SOUTHERN ASS"
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