I'm lousy at predicting, but I think the state's gonna lose this one:
A gay youth group whose specialty license plate was revoked at the behest of conservative Indiana lawmakers is appealing the decision to an administrative law judge, arguing that the state selectively enforced the policy that led to the ban.
The American Civil Liberties Union is representing the Indiana Youth Group in its appeal of the state's March decision, which was made after a group of conservative state Senate Republicans lobbied the BMV to revoke the group's new specialty plates.
Once the state starts letting groups use license plates to promote their causes and raise money, denying specific groups the privilege gets into very dicey First Amendment territory. And lawmakers who wanted the permission revoked knew that, which is why they went for the end-run of the charge about the group "violating the contract with the state" by selling low-number plates for extra money. It's the equivalent of charging Al Capone with income tax evasion because you can't make the racketerring charges stick. The plaintiffs have already come up with the names of several groups that do the same thing routinely and without punishment, making the bogus justification glaringly obvious.
