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Indiana Officials Reject “0ink” Plate

[one_half][dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #9b9b9b;”] I [/dropcap]t seems that a police officer in Indiana has created quite the stink.

A lawsuit filed against the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles, which handles the state’s vanity license plate program, has halted the issuance of new personalized license plates.

According to an article by USA Today:[/one_half]

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[box type=”shadow”] The lawsuit that prompted the BMV to park the vanity plate program was filed in Marion County Superior Court in May by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana on behalf of a Greenfield policeman, Rodney Vawter.

For three years, Vawter had a license plate that read “0INK” — with a zero in place of the O — but when he tried to renew it in March, it was rejected.

The lawsuit says Vawter considers the plate’s verbal pig snort “an ironic statement of pride in his profession.” [/box]

According to the report, “The BMV this year told Vawter the plate was inappropriate, and cited a state statute that allows the BMV to refuse to issue a plate that officials believe carries ‘a connotation offensive to good taste and decency’ or ‘would be misleading.'”.

Georgia Bans 10,000 Vanity License Plates

[one_half][dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #9b9b9b;”] I [/dropcap]n Georgia, you can have the vanity license plate “BEERMAN” but not “BEERRUN”.

Georgia recently made headlines for banning certain license plates and allowing others.  Like most states, a vanity license plate must be reviewed by state government before they are issued.

According to an article by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:[/one_half]

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[box type=”shadow”] The state has rejected thousands of vanity license plates with such themes to protect the public from offensive language.

Most are too vulgar to print. Some are just silly: BIGBRA, ER0TIKA, F0XIE1. But buried amid that list of licentiousness are religious, philosophical and political expressions the state also has deemed unsuitable to appear on motor vehicles. G0DROKS, G0DWH0, ILUVGUNS, GAYPWR and FEMM have been nixed by State Department of Revenue employees, who have wide latitude and only vague statutory guidance in deciding what speech gets squashed.

Yet G0D4EVR, GUNLUV, GAYGAY and FEMFTAL got their nod. [/box]

To read through all 10,000 banned plates, check out this link.