Vanity License Plate Rules Vex Georgia and Other States

Because of an “emergency rule” declared by the state of Georgia, Atlanta hairdresser James Cyrus Gilbert can finally bolt a license plate reading GAYPWR to his Honda CRV. Things reached a crisis point in June, a few months after Gilbert sued the state’s Department of Revenue, alleging it had stifled his right to free speech by denying three applications for vanity plates using the word “gay.” Instead of going to trial, the agency settled, declared the state of emergency, and agreed to review its vanity tag policy.

That will be a big job. The state keeps a list of 10,000 banned letter-and-number combinations describing the size of certain body parts, not-so-nice words for sexual congress, and all things scatological. It’s the decades-old product of a vague set of rules prohibiting hate speech, violence, and obscenities as interpreted and reinterpreted by countless county officials. That explains why Georgia allows license plates reading GAYGAY but not GAYGUY or 4GAYLIB; THNKGOD but not CARGOD or TAXGOD; and MMMBEER but not GOTBEER.