The regulations aren't clear. Surprise, that.

[elfs]

Today, at Toys 'R Us (Kouryou-chan wanted to burn some gift cards and expand her collection of Harry Potter LEGOs), I saw a license plate that read "ALALLAH".

Even in Seattle, that's a fairly brave statement to make. I recalled a kerfluffle several years ago about whether or not atheist vanity plates (with words like "ATHEIST" or "ISNOGOD") were offensive, and how some states have pulled such plates. Washington State has dismissed complaints against "JOHN316" as a plate, although it did recall "C9H13N", the chemical formula for methamphetamine. The rules state that a plate may not be "vulgar, obscene, or offensive," although the state will pull plates with drug or alcohol references.

(Hmm... I wonder how a LEV2013 plate would fare?)

Comments

[lemur123.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure why "ALALLAH" would be a concern ... my area isn't all that enlightened (as was made evident by our federal elections last week), but a religious reference alone wouldn't raise eyebrows here. A bumper sticker that said "Inshallah, and all you other religions can suck my tailpipe" would raise complaints, but a fish emblem or other sign of religion goes unnoticed.

It's like during the World Cup - everyone's car and balcony has the flag(s) of all the countries they or their ancestors came from, and nobody gets into fights. On the other hand, if you say, "Country X has terrible players", you'll get into a terrible glaring match.

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

Alallah is a proper name. Sometimes, people are named Jesus, and it's not a religious statement, y'know? It's not used as an article, because that would be the the God.

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

LOL, I wonder how well LVSATAN would pass?

[jaqfrog.livejournal.com]

I was just reading the Wikipedia entry for Penn Jilette this weekend, and found out that: 'His cars' license plates read "atheist", "nogod", and "godless".[14] "Strangely enough, they wouldn't give me 'Infidel,'" he says.[14]' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_Jillette.
Made me giggle

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

"Alallah," as far as I know, is not the name of any deity.

OTOH, "Allah" is the name of a deity — specifically, it's the Arabic word for, "Yaweh." Everyone seems to forget that.

[srmalloy.livejournal.com]

If I remember the little Arabic I know, 'al-' is the definite article, which would make "Al-Allah" redundant, as "allah" is already "al-lah", 'the (sole) God'. I could see it being offensive, but only in the context of it being something done by someone who wasn't Muslim, demonstrating either their lack of knowledge or their lack of interest in having a proper usage on the license plate, and thereby creating the impression of mocking Islam, even if only mildly and in a manner that makes the plate holder look like a doofus.