New Jersey Motor Vehicles Commission OK’s “ATHE1ST” License Plate

All David Silverman wanted at the start of all this was a license plate reading “ATHE1ST,” a request that New Jersey’s Motor Vehicles Commission apparently considered “offensive.” In denying his application, the MVC garnered itself a whole lot of unwanted attention thanks to a post on the wildly popular (and often ravenous) /r/atheist Reddit channel. Atheist figurehead Richard Dawkins even tweeted about Silverman’s license plate troubles, which unofficially turned it into a cause.

The MVC relented this week, awarding Silverman, president of American Atheists, the “ATHE1ST” plate and blaming the initial denial on a “clerical error.” With that, there is now a little more godlessness in the Garden State.

The Jersey decision, of course, is another victory this week for the “When Atheists Troll the DMV” camp, with Texas atheist Pastafarian Eddie Castillo recently garnering the honor of being the first American to don a colander (the “official” headgear of Pastafarians) in a government-issued ID. Because, after all, breaking down centuries of political and cultural rule by massive religious institutions surely must begin at the state DMV level. [RawStory]