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Vegan wants ILVTOFU on license plate. 2BAD, state says.
Fearing the vanity plate could be misinterpreted in an
offensive manner, Colorado officials put the request on a list of banned letter
combinations. The ACLU has entered the fray.
offensive manner, Colorado officials put the request on a list of banned letter
combinations. The ACLU has entered the fray.
By DeeDee Correll
May
10, 2009
Reporting from Denver — All Kelley Coffman-Lee wanted to do was
broadcast her love of tofu to the driving public.
So the Colorado vegan
applied to the state's Department of Revenue for a vanity license plate for her
Suzuki SL7 carrying the message: ILVTOFU.
Clerks at her local motor
vehicle office approved the plate -- but it did not escape the discerning eyes
of state revenue officials, who detected another way that Coffman-Lee's penchant
for tofu could be read.
"It could be misinterpreted in a way that
suggests that she likes something other than tofu," explained revenue department
spokesman Mark Couch.
Application denied.
Not only that, but
Coffman-Lee's pithy ode to soy went straight onto the department's list of
letter combinations banned under a state law that permits authorities to weed
out those applications deemed "offensive to good taste or
decency."
Others that haven't passed muster: OBITEME, 2EROTIC and
PASSGAS.
The list has grown to 2,744 entries over the years as residents
apply for creative letter combinations to express their personal preferences.
"Ever since we've had vanity plates, there's been someone trying to slip one by
us," Couch said.
Coffman-Lee, who could not be reached for comment, has
said that ILVTOFU does not deserve to be listed. "My whole family is vegan, so
tofu is like a staple for us. I was just going to have a cool license plate, and
the DMV misinterpreted my message," Coffman-Lee told the Denver Post after the
application was denied.
Now the American Civil Liberties Union of
Colorado has entered the fray, questioning what it calls censorship by the
state.
The ACLU has obtained the list of banned
phrases. The list reveals "the more serious ways in which this attempt to
purge offensive words has wound up being an effort to censor ideas and
viewpoints," said Mark Silverstein, legal director of the Colorado ACLU. He
noted that the list includes: BADUSA, 4HEMP and OK2BGAY.
Silverstein
noted the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in a 1971 case that a profane message on a
California man's jacket had free speech protections.
The courts are
divided in their rulings on states' rights to restrict license plate messages,
said Gene Policinski, executive director of the Tennessee-based First Amendment
Center.
Some have ruled that governments can regulate such messages as
long as the restrictions aren't based on viewpoints. Others have held that
motorists have the right to express what they wish with little
restriction.
The next step in Colorado? STYTUND