Iraq war veteran Sean Bujno had the personalized license plate ICUHAJI for four years before the Virginia DMV decided to revoke it, saying that it "could be interpreted as socially, racially or ethnically offensive or disparaging", the letters understood as saying "I see you, Haji." Last November, a state court disagreed with the DMV, telling them "to either return the license plate to Bujno or find a permissible reason to keep it from him." The DMV has not returned the plate to Bujno, but instead sent him a letter saying that it "encourages violence or is vulgar."
I'd say that you'd have to read quite a bit into the plate to say that it encourages violence, since there's certainly a leap between seeing a Haji and wishing him harm. The word "Haji" refers to someone who has made the "hajj", the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, which hardly qualifies as vulgarity.
Read the story at
Fox News.
On a personal note, the first "Haji" I ever heard of was a character on the TV cartoon show
Jonny Quest. The young title character had an Indian sidekick named Hadji, who in one episode appeared to have the ability to teleport himself.
No comments:
Post a Comment