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If God Is Your Co-Pilot, Your License Plates May Now Say So

By Eric Lipman

Happy Monday morning everyone. It's an especially happy Monday morning for religious Vermonters, because on Friday, the 2nd Circuit held that the state's prohibition on religious vanity license plates was unconstitutional. Mark Hamblett has the story at the New York Law Journal, and here's a link to the opinion, Byrne v. Rutledge, authored by a panel consisting of three of the four female jurists on the court -- Judges Amalya Kearse, Reena Raggi, and Debra Livingston (this fact mentioned for purposes of trivia only; I am not suggesting that the gender makeup of the panel had any bearing on the outcome of the case, so calm down). The opinion reveals some interesting tidbits about how the statute, which forbids any ?combination[] of letters or numbers that refer, in any language, to a ... religion? or ?deity,? had been applied. The plaintiff in Byrne applied for a plate reading "JN36TN," a reference to the favorite bible verse of sports fans everywhere. He was denied. This, despite the fact that other drivers had been given plates reading "BUDDHA" and "KALI." The former was ok because it was, supposedly, the driver's nickname, and the latter, the name of the driver's horse. You see,...

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on October 11, 2010 (boomark / email).