aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
‘Bushit’ an expletive in GA
It was 9:30 on a recent Friday night when Denise Grier saw blue lights in her rearview mirror.
She pulled over on Chamblee-Tucker Road, unaware of her infraction.
“The officer asked if I knew I had a lewd decal on my car and I thought, ‘Oh gosh, what did my kids put on my car?’ “
As it turns out, the decal was an anti-Bush bumper sticker Grier slapped on her 2001 Chrysler Sebring last summer. The bumper sticker - “I’m Tired Of All The BUSH-” - contains an expletive.
So being pulled over is bad enough, but then the ATLANTA JOURNAL CONSITUTION CALLS IT AN EXPLETIVE???
The Athens Banner Herald (registration required) printed it:
Is BUSHIT lewd?
Is it even a word? [...]
The Georgia Supreme Court ruled more than a decade ago that the law against lewd bumper stickers is unconstitutional, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Grier, the officer and an ACLU attorney will meet in court next month when Grier contests the misdemeanor charge, which carries a $100 fine. [...]
While Grier argues her bumper sticker is political speech protected by the First Amendment, the case that challenged the lewd decal law didn’t involve such a serious message. In 1991, the ACLU backed a motorist who was cited for a “S--- happens bumper sticker.
The court called the decal law vague and overly broad.
The current edition of the Georgia Law Enforcement Handbook, which officers rely on, doesn’t mention that the decal law was overturned.
UPDATE: Case dismissed.
