It’s absolutely stupid just how often we’ve had to write about issues surrounding license plates. For convoluted reasons that involve how plates, which are mandated on all cars by states, are government property, that means that a state disallowing a vanity plate therefore does not violate the First Amendment. There are caveats to that that have been explored by federal courts, while other plate-holders have won in the lower courts. And, yet, the disputes over what constitutes a “vulgar” vanity plate continue unabated.
For instance, here is a gentleman with his lovely children posing in front of the vanity plate that the state of Maine approved for him.
That man is Peter Starostecki. Now, what came to mind when you saw his license plate? If your answer is that the plate is vulgar because it reads “Love To F. U.” the, first, get your damned mind out of the gutter and, second, you are a candidate for employment at the Maine BMV.
Starostecki says he got a letter in January from the BMV saying he had to get rid of his “LUVTOFU” plates. “I’m just a vegan. No ill intentions,” Starostecki said.
Like the title of the post says, this dude just likes him some tofu. You can tell as much by some of the vegan-related bumper stickers plastered on either side of the plate itself. When Starostecki responded to the BMV by attending an online hearing to appeal the decision, he encountered government bureaucrats doing their thing.
“From the beginning it felt like they sort of had their minds made up,” Starostecki said.
His appeal was rejected because the plates have to be looked at without context.
Except the gutter-mind context of those reviewing the plates, which were initially approved, it seems.
All of this is very silly. And, frankly, the puritanical viewpoint of the BMV certainly could be resulting in a First Amendment violation.
Unfortunately that is a question that will go unanswered for now. Starostecki has dropped the matter at this point and no longer has a vanity plate at all.
