And I was having such a good day, too.

[shadowravyn]

Fuck you, MA. Inna face.

H/T of blinding rage to quish for showing me this.

First of all, if this is your stance, now would not be an excellent time to engage me on it. Fair warning, yo

Comments

[not_from_stars]

Oh my god.

I think I feel even more ill than I did before. :(

[timjr]

What the fucking fuck.

That's really... all I can say about that.

[nightskyre]

Fwiw, I don't think it's about the support of a government agency. I mean, I suppose you can say the fact that they didn't immediately quash the idea is some sort of implicit support of some kind. I seem to remember rumblings around the conservative community when they were talking about this plate, that they had to get X number of people to commit to ordering one (and pay some amount of the fee) before the RMV would agree to make them. I'm pretty sure the idea and support for it are crowdsourced.

Most of the sports plates have charitable foundations, but there's a plate to give money to the Basketball Hall of Fame, which doesn't seem to have any sort of charity associated with it. I searched for but could not find the requirements to submit a special plate for consideration.

Just a thought.

[barbarienne]

While Yankees and Red Sox fans may erroneously claim otherwise, there is no political notion inherent in sports.

A governmental body in charge of a non-political service (license plates are regulatory, not political) shouldn't be directed by crowd-demand. Suppose large numbers of people clamored for "I hate [bigoted epithet]"?

The insidious thing here is that "Choose Life" is prima facie reasonable, because of the implication of "choose." It isn't unreasonable to encourage women to choose to carry a pregnancy to full term. Unfortunately, the organization that has adopted this slogan actually means "Choose to make illegal any alternative other than carrying the pregnancy to term." Which is deeply, deeply offensive to me as the owner of a uterus.

[shadowravyn]

YES. THIS. A MILLION TIMES THIS.

[nightskyre]

Being a Red Sox plan with a Red Sox plate who independently contributes significantly to a charity, it simultaneously makes me smile and be a little sad that one of the better ways to drum up support for a charity is to partner it with something people want enough to pay the third party to get it (of course, this, at its root, is human negotiation in general...)

I see what you're saying, though, and agree w\ p3. Of course, this leads into conversation about many of the other politically driven plates that do\may exist (Gadsden flag plate down in Virginia being the first that comes to mind)

re: they are, simply by having this plate and not one for the opposition.

[etherial]

All you need to do to get a special plate is get enough signatures on a piece of paper. The RMV is not making a political statement here. They are simply the *ahem* vehicle of said political statement.

In Missouri, the local SCA Kingdom has their own plate.

Re: they are, simply by having this plate and not one for the opposition.

[barbarienne]

Yes, but I highly doubt the local SCA is stumping for mandatory sword fighting lessons for all Missourians.

Re: they are, simply by having this plate and not one for the opposition.

[etherial]

My point is that this isn't the RMV's fault. It's the legislature's fault for letting Red Sox fans (or whoever started this) turn a government document into a bumper sticker. After that, it's inevitable that people are going to do offensive things with it.

Re: they are, simply by having this plate and not one for the opposition.

[rgfgompei]

So I guess the question is, are there any restriction on what CAN be approved for a plate? If they would literally print a plate that said "God Hates Fags" or "Black people are inherently inferior to white people" if they got enough signatures then I guess I could agree that they aren't taking a stand. If there is a line they won't cross, but they consider this issues to be on the "acceptable" side of that line, then they are taking a stand. They are saying this message, and the charity that benefits from it, are acceptable.

[juldea]

What etherial said: special plates are simply a matter of signature collection. I don't know what the restrictions on content are, but the pro-life message as a whole is an acceptable message. It's not one I agree with, but judged by the standards of society as a whole, it isn't offensive.

I have mentioned before the desire for the geekery of Massachusetts to get together the signatures for an awesome geeky plate, but I don't know where I mentioned it, so perhaps I should do so again.

[barbarienne]

judged by the standards of society as a whole, it isn't offensive.

-->Who decides that?

The idea of treating African Americans as human wasn't offensive to "society as a whole" in many, many areas of the USA when the Civil Rights Act was passed.

Treating women as baby-making machines is deeply offensive.

[juldea]

I believe society judges by "you need $100,000 and 1,500 signatures," honestly. That's a fairly steep curve

[barbarienne]

It would be hilarious if someone in Massachusetts went for something across-the-aisle from that sentiment. (Alas, I live four states away.)