Jesus was on Karen Chadwell's mind when she went to the Oldham County Clerk's office on the last day of March.

A devoutly Christian woman, she was going to get a personalized license plate for the 2009 Volkswagen Jetta she had just bought. The plate she wanted would tell the people idling behind her at red lights just how much she loves God.

"It was about how I feel about the Lord," said the 60-year-old nanny. "Maybe it might stop and make people think about him. I don’t think people think about him enough."

When she learned last month that whoever had the JESUS1 plate before her didn't renew it, she was elated. "I was like, 'Yippie, skippie, I got the plate I wanted.'"

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But she was devastated a week later when she got word from the state Transportation Cabinet saying that her request for a license plate that read JESUS1 had been rejected.

Why?

According to the letter she received, it was because the state determined that it violated state law and regulations that prohibit personalized license plates that are "vulgar or obscene."

Vulgar? Obscene?

Are you outraged?

Oldham County Clerk Julie Barr was. She fired off an email to officials at the Transportation Cabinet.

"I have a very mad customer," Barr wrote. "She ordered a personalized plate JESUS1. She received a letter of rejection stating it was vulgar and offensive. I find that letter vulgar and offensive!"

Barr got an email back from John-Mark Hack, the commissioner of the Department of Vehicle Regulation, explaining that it was wrong to call the plate "vulgar or obscene" (that wording in the form letter has since been changed) but that it was rejected nonetheless.

In his email, Hack blamed the rejection on a lawsuit in U.S. District Court that the ACLU of Kentucky filed against the state last year after the state rejected an atheist's application for a license plate that would have read IM GOD.

After the lawsuit was filed, Hack said his office began a review of the process for approving personalized license plates. It's currently handled by a small office.

On April 14, Hack announced in a letter to county clerks that he was putting a moratorium on any new personalized license plates until his office completes its review. He declined to be interviewed for this column.

In the IM GOD lawsuit, the state is arguing that a law relating to special license plates prohibits overtly religious messages on license plates.

That law bars groups seeking special license plates — like the University of Kentucky or University of Louisville plates you can buy for your car — from having as a "primary purpose the promotion of any specific faith, religion, or antireligion."

The law relating to personalized license plates says that those plates must abide by the same rules as the special plates. But the law prohibits groups with a primary purpose of promoting religion — it doesn't say anything about a message that promotes religion.

I'm no lawyer but I don't think I agree with the Cabinet's reading of the law.

But what is clear is that the Transportation Cabinet, in its effort to strictly adhere to the law as it reads, has lumped heartfelt religious expressions into a group with KY SUXS, EFDUP, BUBL BT, 6GOD and ASSMAN (think "Seinfeld") — other plates that have been banned in the past two years.

"I'd love to fight it because I’d really like the JESUS1 license plate," said Chadwell, who moved to Kentucky for the cheap housing about a decade ago after her 30-year-marriage ended in divorce. "I thought about it, but it costs money to fight things and I just don't have it."

For now she's stuck with a regular old license plate with three random numbers and three random letters. She doesn't even have her old personalized plate that said GOD3R1, a nod to the holy trinity, on her old Chevy Tahoe that she sold.

God knows if that one would be considered vulgar now, too.

Joseph Gerth's column runs on most Sundays and at various times throughout the week. He can be reached at 502-582-4702 or by email at jgerth@courier-journal.com.

BANNED LICENSE PLATES

Here is a partial list of license plates that have been banned in Kentucky during the last two years.

TOP1ES

EFDUP

WEINER

HOOK3R

MAN H8R

K1LL

MURDR

WTFJ

FILTHY

DZBUTS

B1TCHN

IDFWU2

F YEAH