Man Loses Maine Vanity Plates Describing His Love For Bean Mush
from the cool-beans dept
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.
Filed Under: free speech, license plate, luvtofu, maine, maine bmv, peter starostecki, tofu, vanity license plate, vanity plates
Comments on “Man Loses Maine Vanity Plates Describing His Love For Bean Mush”
Not only does he drive a BMW, he has a vanity plate.
Hanging is too good for him.
If ‘plates have to be looked at without context’, doesn’t that mean the BMV would be acting against their own guidelines? After all, the alleged curse word isn’t spelled out. You have to contextualize the last two letters on the plate in order to interpret it that way.
I guess the Maine DMV also hates tofu as well.
And it’s still none of their business.
Re: Vanity plates
My son had a Maine license plate that said VAG LVR. Guess what. They are banned. VW auto group is what it stands for. He loves VWs. But everyone thinks it’s a profanity
There was a woman a few years back who had vanity plates that said NAZI. Her name was Shanaaz – Nazi to her family.
Re:
This is also confusing to some well-intentioned but ignorant people when I say I’m an Ashkenazi Jew, they think “Ashkenazi” is a slur because it has “nazi” in the name.
Re: Re:
The ignorant scunthorping it is could be even worse, reading in an additional holocaust reference as pronounced “ash-kan nazi” and thinking it a reference to their infamous use of giant cremators.
The phrase is, “Get your mind out of the gutter, it’s getting crowded down here.”
"It had to be read without context"
Luv to Fu. It read it love to foo until you wrote get your mind out of the gutter. Without context it reads what the reader wants to see. So dirty minds see dirty things. Trying to stop dirty minds from thinking dirty things is a fools errand.
I think a better idea, one that would certainly save the states literal tons of moneys, would be to not allow vanity plates in the first place.
Re:
States charge extra money for vanity plates. They’re a nice money maker rather than the opposite as long as you charge enough.
Southwest Flight
I think the man is telling us what he wants to do on vacation!
Looking at it “without context” I see a guy in a BMW that longs to take Southwest Airlines flights for some FUN in the SUN — not unusual for someone living in a dreary cold grey state.
Let’s break it down:
LUV – Southwest’s informal name and stock ticker symbol
TO- An indication he wants to fly Southwest (Luv) TO somewhere, like FROM only the other way
FU – Ran out of characters on a plate when he wanted to put in FUN (or maybe Funafuti Atol, IATA airport code FUN…)
Other than his obsession with his upcoming vacation to New Guinea to have FUN in the SUN after his flight on LUV all I can say is the people in the Maine DMV/MVD are jealous of his plan and want to ruin it so they can sit at home huddled in fear from their cold grey clouds and inhospitable weather longing for that one month of orange leaves when the tourist comes by. With his dog.
Re: pure Hemingway!
Loved your comment about the tourists, pure BL Hemingway!
> all I can say is the people in the Maine DMV/MVD are jealous of his plan and want to ruin it so they can sit at home huddled in fear from their cold grey clouds and inhospitable weather longing for that one month of orange leaves when the tourist comes by. With his dog.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Unless it is vulgar, porn, or other stuff we don’t like.
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Or said speech violates Copyright. In Crony Capitalist America, Copyright trumps free speech.
Re: Re:
“Or said speech violates Copyright. In Crony Capitalist America, Copyright trumps free speech”
Do you have any real life examples?
sadly, i doubt he’d be eager to get the “lovesoy” alternative
Having to read it without context clearly wasn’t a well thought out rule. Without context, it can be interpreted any number of ways; it just so happens that the Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles interpreted it in the guttural context. (Granted, there are two guttural contexts that this could be interpreted as, the other should be obvious.)
Could have been wurst
LVNATTO
tofu IS obscene
as title
The First Amendment allows anyone to put that (or anything else) on a bumper sticker on their car. If the state charges extra to put personal expressions on the license plate – which means they’re clearly not government speech – it seems that any legal content should be allowed.
I guess the title of the article would also be challenged in Maine. It is too close to “…His Love for Mean Bush.”
Naturally. The BMV doesn’t want anyone using its official motto.
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