COMMENTARY - 2 for 1 special! Vanity plates AND Floridiots!

Speaking of Floridiots... I know this news article is a little old, one year exactly as a matter of fact, but a good story is timeless. Here we have Floridiots protesting a vanity plate. The DMV has cancelled the plate after a whole ten people signed a petition stating they were offended by it's message, which simply read "ATHEIST". Okay, let's look at this from both sides. Steve Miles, the owner of the plate, is the vice president of the Atheists club of Florida. It makes perfect sense to have a plate stating his convictions, or lack thereof. The dictionary definition of "atheist" is as follows: "One who disbelieves or denies the existence of a God, or supreme intelligent Being." In what way can this possibly be construed as an offensive term? The problem lies in that Florida is too far south to be considered part of the Bible Belt, and instead falls more in the Bible Buttcrack region. Combine the religious fervor of the Bible Belt with the blind conviction and stupidity of a state that thinks the civil war hasn't ended, where Union flags still fly off the back of their pickups, and you'll start to get the picture. Since this poor fellow does not share their belief in God, then he obviously shouldn't be allowed to express his opinion. It's people like this who give organized religion a bad name. Is a car driving around with a message conveying the lack of a religious affiliation by the driver really going to turn others away from church on Sundays? I think not. But a bunch of religious fanatics trampling someone's first amendment rights might make some people think twice about organized religion. That said, Steve Miles needs to get over his stupid vanity plate. You live in Florida, you should have expected this. Consider the money he's shelled out to keep that plate for the 16 years he's had it. He could easily have made bumper stickers for every member of the atheists club in the state with that much. Then there would be 300+ cars driving around Florida proclaiming "ATHEIST". Plus there would be no annual fee involved. Slap the sticker on, and you're done. Then the fanatic Floridiots could whine about it until they were blue in the face and there's nothing they could do about it, short of taking a razor blade to the back of your car and scraping it off themselves, at which point you could have them arrested. So where is the downside to this for the atheists? Apparently, in a follow-up story, the DMV reversed it's decision and informed Miles that he could keep his plate after all. Atheists: 1, Floridiots: 0.