TORONTO (RNS) Motorists in Ontario will be allowed to use religious titles and “positive expressions of religious beliefs” in their personalized license plates under new guidelines recently adopted by the provincial government.
The new rules still prohibit pejorative, derogatory and proselytizing statements, and ban claims of superiority of one religion over any other.
So, GODSENT and IBLVJC are permitted; included on the blacklist are JCSUX, ILVSATAN and NLYALLAH.
The guidelines, which were released by the Ontario ministry of transportation on Friday (March 27), were revised more than a year after a retired United Church of Canada minister was barred from renewing her “REV JO” license plates, which she had held for nearly 20 years. At the time, government rules prohibited any religious words or phrases on license plates; officials also suggested that the word `rev’ might encourage street racing.
The decision drew scorn from both the Rev. Joanne Sorrill, who called it “political correctness to the extreme,” and the general public. Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said the case made his government “laughable,” which prompted a review of the guidelines by an advisory panel.
The government promises a more “common-sense” approach to approving wording in the future.
“I really wanted the plates because I have had them for 20 years and they are special, and I just didn’t want to give them up,” Sorrill told Toronto’s CITY-TV News. The retiree lives in Whitby, Ontario, 30 miles east of Toronto.
In a report that accompanied the guidelines, the advisory panel noted that some members argued that having religious statements on government-sanctioned plates might “remove the distinction between church and state.”
The majority of the panel, however, recommended that positive expressions of religious beliefs, religious titles, references to Scriptures, and religious celebrations, symbols and mythology be allowed.
All personalized license plates in Ontario are subject to review by a committee and may be rejected if they are deemed objectionable for derogatory, profane, racist, sexual or religious material. References to drugs and alcohol are also prohibited.
