For 11 years, over nearly 200,000 miles, with the blessing of the state of Virginia, David Phillips has driven his Tracker with the "POOFTER" license plate, and nobody has complained -- not even when he parked at the British Embassy, where everybody knows "poofter" is British slang for a gay man.

"It's always a rolling good laugh for them," says Phillips, who is gay and chose his tags' message because "it's just an amusing word that I self-identify with."

The commonwealth of Virginia is not amused. It gave Phillips his vanity plates in error, Carolyn Easley, coordinator of the special license plates office, wrote in a recent letter. "You may have grown fond of your personalized plates," but they are "socially, racially or ethnically offensive or disparaging" and "you must return them." There was no explanation for why it took Virginia 11 years to figure out what "poofter" means.

They'll have to pry those plates from Phillips's cold dead hands, or something like that. The 42-year-old Arlington County resident, who works as a computer consultant, says he's not sending back the tags, even if the state has generously provided a prepaid envelope for that purpose.

The next step: a hearing in Richmond. But Phillips's chances are not good, because his case has been to the Word Committee, a panel of a dozen Department of Motor Vehicles employees who review vanity plate applications that have either drawn a citizen complaint or been flagged by a computer program that searches proposed plate messages -- forward and backward -- for obscene, explicit, excretory, violent or offensive content.

In Phillips's case, it must have been a citizen complaint that triggered the review because the state doesn't just randomly go back and reconsider plates that have been on the road for years. "We definitely rely on residents to report any inappropriate message," says DMV spokesman Melanie Stokes, who, citing privacy rules, won't comment on how Phillips's tags came in for reinspection.

If you, like Phillips, are amazed that the state would bother to spend tax dollars chasing after vanity plates, you'll want to grab the blood pressure meds before reading this: Hundreds of battles over personalized plates have used up untold government resources in a strange corner of the law that has some of the nation's top courts issuing contradictory rulings.

Ever since 1977, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that New Hampshire could not stop residents from covering up the state's "Live Free or Die" motto on license plates, courts have struggled over who gets to decide what words may go on tags. States have denied drivers messages such as "GVT SUX," "WINE," "PUSHER," "QUICKEE" and even "ATHEIST."

But courts have pushed back: One federal appeals court ordered Missouri to approve "ARYAN-1," saying the state "may not censor a license plate because its message might make people angry." In Vermont, however, a federal appeals court said the state could ban scatological terms because that doesn't involve quashing any viewpoint.

In Virginia, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit prohibited the state from banning a Confederate flag logo on a special license plate for the Sons of Confederate Veterans because that would be viewpoint discrimination.

The state did strip Alice Deighan and her partner, Scout, of their "2DYKES" plates a decade ago; the then-Alexandria residents' appeal was denied.

The lesbian couple's argument was the same as Phillips's. "This is how we identify," says Deighan, a social worker who now lives in Rhode Island. "We obviously weren't calling random motorists 'dykes.' This is what we call ourselves. There are a lot of things in the world that are offensive, but this wasn't one of them. If the word offends you on the road, don't look at it. But the word police wouldn't consider our argument."
washingtonpost.com

Admittedly, we have vanity plates. LOL

However, if they can't get it together any better than this, and have some kind of strict regulation on what is/isn't acceptable, they should just can the whole program.

Who is to determine what is/isn't acceptable? Shouldn't I have the right to have a personalize license plate that reflects me? GAYHICK? I mean come on... someone needs to get their panties out of a wad over this one.

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Virginia is so close to Washington they're a little annal retentive anyway, but I can see their point on this. Sexually explicit phrases to identify ones self to a partner is one thing, but think about it:
You're riding down the local streets of your town on your way to little Thelma's basketball game and suddenly your darling rocks you out of your reverie by asking, "What's a p-o-o-f-t-e-r?" Or "Hey, Mom, they spelled Dykes wrong!. Boy if you can afford a personal plate ya might learn how to spell. Huh, Mom?"

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Political correctness gone wild...example 67,936...

BTW - A friend of mine had a license plate in high school that read "3M TA3'...

If you can't recognize it, write it on a piece of paper, then turn the paper around and put it up to the light...

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"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd

well, we're able to do it (legally) almost everywhere else.

the problem with poofter and dyke is that for many people they are offensive for a VARIETY of reasons. These are still words of derision for many people.

But the term Redneck can be offensive as well. I'm not about to tell someone that they cannot self identify as redneck and thus I'm not going to tell them that they cannot get a personalized license plate that says Redneck. The people who are offended have no real right to be offended. They aren't being called such. They can stuff it. The plates aren't on their car. It would be different if they were forced to have it on their vehicle.

Damned thought police.

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Jesus Was A Liberal

If a certain course of action makes the mouth-breathers furious, then that’s a good policy. – The Practical Environmentalist

What about a Black man with plates that translated to "Jungle Bunny" or "Spear Chucker."

A Native American with "Blanket Ass"

A Jew with "Kike"

A Middle Easterner with "Rag Head"

Or a White Guy with "Cracker."

Would those be too offensive and inflamitory, or should people be allowed to display such things on lisence plates?

Personally, I think it's an interesting question. I'm not sure I've made up my mind yet, although I do tend to lean toward always supporting free expression.

Don't you just love it when protected classes of society have to be protcted from themselves?...

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"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd