“Obscene or Offensive” Plate

More license plate fun. A guy in New York has his custom license plate application rejected. Why? Because the license plate powers that be are–what shall we say–oversensative?

Alas, in mid-January, he received a Dear Noah rejection letter. “The Custom Plate which you requested – DUMPBUSH – cannot be issued at this time for the reason(s) indicated below,” the letter said. The reason: “Others may view the plate as obscene or offensive.”
. . .
THE Custom Plates Unit has 16 employees, most of them veteran decoders and defenders of proper roadway decorum. All day long, they scrutinize letter-and-number combinations of eight or less to ensure that some Niskayuna knucklehead’s license plate does not suggest that your mother wears Army boots.
If a custom-plate specialist feels uneasy about a submission, a committee of specialists will gather to decipher its true meaning, and to advise, aye or nay. “Once in a while, one will get through,” Joseph Picchi, the department’s spokesman, said, referring to inappropriate license plates. “That’s why you have to be very careful.”
It turns out that proposed phrases of a political nature are held to a slightly different standard: generally speaking, they should be positive, upbeat – nice. “We don’t censor plates for political content or if they’re politically related,” Mr. Picchi said. “We do if they’re politically offensive. If they said HATE somebody.”

Why is it that advocating a politician be voted out of office is “hate” speech? Isn’t that Democracy 101? And how is that going to offend someone any more than bumper stickers, yard signs, commercials, and any other kind of campaign advertising? If you support a candidate, you’re implicitly rejecting his or her opponent.