State of Virginia demands that man return his "POOFTER" vanity plates after 11 years

[Amerigo Vespucci]

A Vehicle for Self-Expression? Not on These Roads.

By Marc Fisher
Sunday, November 4, 2007; Page C01

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.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/03/AR2007110301111.html

[Rick Myers]

1. Virginia has the most 'vanity plates' I've ever seen!

Even my sister has them... She's been questioned by pinched-faced God-freakin' folk who ask her what "CT WOMAN" is supposed to mean... They think it's something 'dirty' but in reality, she's a Cheap Trick fan!!!

If I saw 'POOFTER' I'd just have a big laugh! After 11 years, I think he can tell them to 'PISS OFF!'

[MADem]

3. They're cheap there--it's a good revenue stream for the Commonwealth, too.

I would have guessed "Connecticut Woman" but then, I'm a fogey.

[vireo]

5. Or "Conspiracy Theorist"

[Generic Brad]

15. You're so vain. I bet you think this plate is about you.

;-) Just ribbing the good people of Virginia.

[MADem]

2. Gee. who was the whining little FOOOKER who complained, I wonder?

Are they saying that being gay is "offensive?" Well, it IS Virginia, after all--and they're for Haters:

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....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.


I think this guy has the right to know who's 'accusing' him after all these years. I'll bet it's a neighbor!

[cboy4]

4. Hmmm, well I googled "poofter" and it can be used

in a derogatory fashion:

(Web definitions for poofter
or poof - homosexual man (Offensive) (also common in British English)

So I think Virginia is making the correct call.

I mean, I don't have a problem at all with gay people using it for a personalized plate.

But how can the DMV determine whether someone is gay, or their intentions? They cannot.

[MADem]

6. Well, they've had eleven long years....!

It's often used affectionately. Context, as always, is everything.

[cboy4]

8. Yes, but "nigga" is also used affectionately. Context

is everything....but the problem is it's impossible for the DMV to determine intent.

[MADem]

9. You can say "poofter" on tee vee, though. And again, they've had eleven years.

The time to nip it in the bud was in 1996, not now.

And given the challenges that have been successfully argued as to the rights of people to express themselves, even offensively (the Confederate Flag plates, e.g.) I'm hoping this poofter wins.

[cboy4]

12. Oh come on MADem. It's never too late to

nip an injustice in the bud.

There's no statute of limitations.

I'm really surprised to hear you argue otherwise.

[MADem]

14. I have never, in the last decade or more, heard that term used derogatorily.

It's like QUEER. That was an insult--a serious one--a few decades ago, now it's in TV show titles. Queer as Folk, Queer Eye...etc.

It's not an injustice when it's now viewed by more people than not as a term of endearment, except perhaps by people who don't like 'Queers' or 'Poofters' and wouldn't like them if they called 'em Your Royal Highness or Million Dollar Lottery Winner.

And we've got a Poofter arguing that he wants to keep his plates. To me, that's the controlling aspect in all this. If the Confederate Sons can have their Flag license plates, and the courts have so ruled, this Poofter should be able to have his.

I'd say it's up to him, before it is up to some anonymous scold who probably IS one of those folks who doesn't like those 'Poofters' or 'Queers'--and who probably reported the guy because he'd be happier if the guy, and his car, went back in the closet....

[cboy4]

16. MADem, it's irrelevant whether or not you've not heard

the term used derogatorily. Right?

There are probably some terms that I've not heard used derogatorily.

I just think potentially offensive expressions concerning race, gender, sexual orientation, creed, etc., should not be authorized, because the DMV cannot determine the intent.

I have no problem with the guy keeping the plate, but I think it opens up a can of worms since we live in a non-perfect, bigoted world.


on edit. typo

[MADem]

18. It is irrelevant, and the guy should be able to display it even if it said something genuinely

derogatory--which this example isn't. And clearly, in context, the term is directed at the driver of the car, not at others.

So long as offensive Confederate Flags are displayed on VA license plates, all things being equal, why the hell not?

I go the other way entirely. I say OFFEND AWAY!!! There shouldn't be limits on speech of this nature, anymore than there should be limits to Freedom (as Porgie has suggested). It's a FIRST Amendment, it isn't a three-quarters Amendment.

I hope he kicks ass in court.

[cboy4]

19. Well then to be consistent, you would need to approve

of license plates which read, "Homo" "Nigga" "Faggot" "Jap" "Retard" "Bitch" "Beaner" "Pussy," etc., just to name some.

First amendment, right?

[MADem]

21. Yes, absolutely. Freedom isn't always comfy-cozy.

For those doing the speaking, or those doing the hearing (seeing/reading).

I think that Confederate flag is pretty fucking dispicable, myself. Way worse than any of those "Carlos Mencia" words in your list.

Those baaastids with those sorts of plates would probably spend a lot of time at MAACO, though, getting those key marks buffed out and repainted...and they'd be advised to keep their vehicles reliably garaged, too!

They might also find themselves on the receiving end (Hey, ASSHOLE!! What are you, some kinda SHITHEAD?) of a little First Amendment discussion, too.

[cboy4]

22. Alright, well at least you're consitsent....unlike lots and

lots of other DUers. ;)

[MADem]

24. One of my all time favorite exercises in First Amendment fun was that effort by Michael Moore

and a viciously amusing group of 'street theater' whiz-kids against the Fred Phelps jerks. It was an episode of "The Awful Truth" and it gives me such a laugh every time I see it.

They also went after Trent Lott with a bunch of cheerleaders in that episode--ironically, in front of his lovely ancestral home, that was blown away by Katrina in later years.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

13. I always associate it with Monty Python...

...and have never, even for a moment, considered it a derogatory term. I just think of it as the punchline in a Monty Python sketch. But that's easy for me to say because I'm straight. Maybe if I were gay it would bother me, maybe it wouldn't.

Second Bruce: New-Bruce, are you a Poofter?

Fourth Bruce: Are you a Poofter?

Michael: No!

Fourth Bruce: No. Right, I just want to remind you of the faculty rules: Rule One!

Everybruce: No Poofters!

Fourth Bruce: Rule Two, no member of the faculty is to maltreat the Abbos in any way at all -- if there's anybody watching. Rule Three?

Everybruce: No Poofters!!

Fourth Bruce: Rule Four, now this term, I don't want to catch anybody not drinking. Rule Five,

Everybruce: No Poofters!

Fourth Bruce: Rule Six, there is NO ... Rule Six. Rule Seven,

Everybruce: No Poofters!!

Fourth Bruce: Right, that concludes the readin' of the rules, Bruce.

http://orangecow.org/pythonet/sketches/bruces.htm

:toast:

[Dr. Strange]

20. That's kinda funny, because I've always associated it with the same skit...

and so I have always thought it was derogatory. I mean, it's in every other rule!

Ah well, another mind warped by Monty Python.

[Raejeanowl]

7. I'd Demand A Special Replacement Vanity

Come on folks, it's not like we're talking truly gross or intimate sexual references.

Since Phillips isn't allowed to celebrate his sexual preference as he chooses via the vanity plate (as two lesbians found in a similar circumstance), perhaps he should edit it in honor of the person who complained, using either of two perfectly legitimate words having meanings other than the scatological: "Bitch" or "Bastard."

I know, allow the audience to interpret the intentions, and project the "socially offensive or disparaging" part into it, not the owner of the message. Unfortunately, you could eliminate about 20-25 per cent of the plates in Virginia, if you really chose to drive (no pun intended) that point home and let an anonymous complainant decide. And another good chunk of VA drivers would suffer if they were written up for similarly offensive bumper stickers. Since we're already being ridiculously paternalistic, may I also decide who's decently and indecently exposed; who's abusing their children in public by the way they dress them, feed them, and talk to them; and who should be arrested for disorderly conduct with their loud, vulgar cell-phone diatribes and restaurant social follies that should have been kept private?

:rant:

[MADem]

10. He's taking it to court. I hope he wins. nt

[juno jones]

11. It's used a lot in Britain

I learned it from Monty Python, and have seen it used elsewhere thru the years. It seems to be harmless. I hope he gets to keep it, he sounds like a guy with a sense of humor.

[Quantess]

17. This one is too good to miss:

I posted it on the other (dupe) thread already. It's a must-see, IMO.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

23. Oh, man, that's brilliant...

...I wonder how many horn-honks THAT car gets per day?

:rofl: