IM GOD Transcript
Prologue
(Quirky music begins)
Ben Hart: That’s the most famous license plate in the world.
Ariel Lavery: Okay, Austin, I am so excited for this episode.
Austin Carter: You’re excited about ‘the most famous license plate in the world’?
Ariel Lavery: Yeah! Well, I’m excited to tell this guy’s story too, Ben Hart, who toughed out a four years long battle with the state of Kentucky, which made his plate the most famous license plate in the world.
Austin Carter: He could definitely win an award for persistence for his beliefs.
Ben Hart: I’m the knight in shining armor. (laugh) I don’t have much armor, but I’m doing what I think is the correct and right thing to do.
Ariel Lavery: And, hint hint, he actually has won an award from the Freedom from Religion Foundation! I think it’s ironic that you used the word beliefs, because in this context that seems to be a loaded word. Some people might say he has a lack of belief.
Austin Carter: As an atheist?
Ariel Lavery: Yeah right..
Austin Carter: So often this country's foundation is tied to religious beliefs.
Karen Chadwell: This country was founded on God. We even have it on our money.
Ariel Lavery: Exactly. So I got to thinking about Ben’s eighty-two years living in this country, most of it as an atheist. You might think that he would question his love of country with most of his fellow countrymen so connected to God and religion. And it seemed that way to me because he’s always challenging these overtly religious expressions.
Austin Carter: You mean like the nativity scenes he’s challenged in front of courthouses or on government property?
Ariel Lavery: Right. But whenever he saw something like this he was challenging the legality of it, not whether it was offensive to him.
Ben Hart: I’ve been pretty much an activist in this. Where I see something I say something.
Austin Carter: Yeah he never really expressed being offended by religion, just that he wanted to kinda correct for this expressed connection between church and state.
Ariel Lavery: Exactly! And ironically, the long battle he recently won against this state’s prejudice against anti-religious speech has helped to free those who want to express more religious views!
Austin Carter: Huh, that is ironic.
Ariel Lavery: So, the more I thought about him, the efforts he’s made to protect free speech, and how his belief in our founding texts has put him on this journey, I thought, he might be one of the most patriotic people I know!
(Middle of Everywhere Theme Music begins)
Ben Hart: I believe in the First Amendment. That’s the most sacred thing that was ever written.
Ariel Lavery: In this episode, we’ll learn how an atheist who’s willing to stand up against Christian favoritism in government ends up illuminating everyone’s First Amendment rights, today in IM GOD.
Austin Carter: From WKMS and PRX, this is Middle of Everywhere.
Ariel Lavery: Big stories from the small places we call home. I’m Ariel Lavery.
Austin Carter: And I’m Austin Carter.
Scene 1 - Growing up
Ben Hart: I was born in Corbin, KY on August the 8th 1939. My mother was 15 years old. My father was 19. When I was born he was in prison.
Austin Carter: I remember when we first talked to Ben on the phone together that he was born into some kinda difficult circumstances.
Ariel Lavery: Yeah. I thought this was pretty significant. And I wondered how his relationship with his dad affected him.
Ben Hart: He was the black sheep of the family.
Austin Carter: Yeah, his dad wasn’t really part of his life growing up.
Ben Hart: My mother and I were homeless. I stayed with different people as I was growing up. I stayed with my grandparents. In the first and second grade I was in a boarding school. And then I was in another boarding school in the third or fourth grade up in cincinnati.
Ariel Lavery: These were religious boarding schools.
Ben Hart: They were old time methodists. They were really nice people. Our bedroom was on the third floor. Our classroom was down the hall. Our church was on the first floor. And we went to church every morning, twice on Wednesday and five times on Sunday.
Austin Carter: That’s a whole lotta church!
Ben Hart: Then I went back to live with my mother when I was 10 years old.
(1940s romantic music begins)
And I happened to see this girl in class. She was in the same grade, but she was in a different classroom.
Ariel Lavery: I think this is where his life really started.
Ben Hart: When I was in the 6th grade I told a friend of mine, I says, "You know what? I’m gonna marry that girl."
Austin Carter: Haha. He had found his first purpose in life: Yvonne (drawn out).
Ariel Lavery: (Laughter) Yeah. Too bad Yvonne didn’t really feel the same way.
Ben Hart: She didn’t know who I was.
Yvonne Hart: I thought he was obnoxious and kinda pushy and I didn’t like him at all.
Ariel Lavery: But we know how determined Ben can be. He did wait out a 4 years long lawsuit just to get a vanity plate.
Ben Hart: Sure enough, I made up my mind. Finally I started going with her when we got to the eighth grade. We got married young.
Yvonne Hart: I was 16 and he was 17.
Austin Carter: Wow, that’s pretty young to get married.
Ariel Lavery: Yeah, but this was the 1950s? Different time different place. And Ben was still ok with doing things traditionally, like getting married in a church.
Yvonne Hart: A church over in Kentucky, a methodist church.
Ariel Lavery: But despite all his early religious influence, this was probably the last time Ben did anything in a church.
Ben Hart: I was sitting there having breakfast at this place called camp Washington Chili.
(Religious music begins)
And I got to thinking about Noah’s ark, and they drowned all the babies in the world. And I says, oh my God, I mean. What kinda God is that? And I became an atheist right at that moment.
(Musical pause)
Scene 2 - Loss
Austin Carter: I found it really amazing that Ben came to this huge life decision so young.
Ariel Lavery: Yeah, even more remarkable was that he became an atheist when only about 2% of the country was not identifying with a religion according to Gallup.
Austin Carter: Oh wow. It really seems that something like this big revelation in Ben's life stuck with him and even persisted through all the tragedy he experienced.
Ariel Lavery: Yeah, it really does. The amount of loss in Yvonne’s and his life was just… heartbreaking.
(Sad piano music begins)
Ben Hart: We’ve had four boys. Two are surviving and two are dead. The second one was premature, and he was three months premature.
Ariel Lavery: FYI, that’s skipping the entire third trimester of pregnancy.
Yvonne Hart: I don’t really like to talk about it.
Ariel Lavery: This was understandably difficult for them to talk about even after 60 years.
Yvonne Hart: I had been to the doctor the night before and I told them that there was a problem and that my baby quit moving and I knew that something was the matter. And he just told me well, you’re just being silly. You know, you don’t know that much about it. He wasn't very nice about it.
Ben Hart: You know he thought well, you know, you’re just female… talking.
Ariel Lavery: From what I know about childbirth, I think this kind of doctor response toward women was more common back then.
Yvonne Hart: So when I went home I think my husband felt like, well, you know the doctor said that nothing was really the matter. So he gave me two Aspirins and told me to go to bed. Well, I took the two aspirins and I threw ‘em up on him, I think.
Ben Hart: But the next morning she was having the baby.
Yvonne Hart: I just had the baby at home.
Ben Hart: I delivered the baby. Because he was born outside the hospital they had him out in the hall in a uh incubator.
Yvonne Hart: They said he had this lung problem, just like the Kennedy baby.
Ben Hart: He had what they called glass lung at that time. He lived to about 20 hours, and he passed away.
Ariel Lavery: I think losing a new baby might be the most devastating thing someone could live through. I’m not religious and I’ve wondered if I might just start praying if anything like this happened to my baby.
Austin Carter: So often people find themselves turning to God or religion in moments like these. Sometimes that’s the only comfort someone can find.
Ben Hart: I can fully understand religious people turning to that for solace.
Ariel Lavery: And without religion, Ben did the best he could.
Ben Hart: You know it was a terrible thing but you just try to think of other things, kinda take your mind off of it.
Ariel Lavery: Meanwhile Yvonne was still trying to find comfort in the church.
Yvonne Hart: Yeah I went to church and prayed for and nobody cared about me coming and… They thought I had sinned and that’s why it happened.
Austin Carter: That’s a harsh response.
Ariel Lavery: Yeah, I think that was partially what ended up pushing Yvonne away from religion instead of turning toward it. But this kind of tragedy was not done with them yet.
(Sad piano music begins)
Ben Hart: Our oldest son was 32 and ah he became ill. And ah he ended up dying of a heart attack.
Yvonne Hart: I kept waiting for my son to call me on Saturday because he always called every Saturday. And it took me a long time to realize he wasn’t gonna call me anymore.
Ben Hart: It’s like somebody reaches into your chest and rips out your heart. That’s about the feeling you have.
(Musical pause)
Yvonne Hart: God kinda let me down in allota ways.
Ariel Lavery: So the loss of her children has really turned Yvonne toward atheism as well.
Yvonne Hart: I found myself more and more getting away from it than I do thinking about going back to it. The more I read and everything. And a lot of things my husband has showed me, chapters in the bible … the bible did not like women too well. They wanted women to have children but they didn't like the women.
Ariel Lavery: I was surprised at how indignant Yvonne got when she started talking about the bible.
Yvonne Hart: It’s hard to believe that God would act that way or teach that way. And then he gave us his son who’s supposed to teach us better. And what did he teach us? Nothing. (Laughs)
Austin Carter: Scripture became a real pain point for Ben and Yvonne, huh? But Ben never condemned religious people for their beliefs.
Ben Hart: Most of the people I know are religious people. They’re good people. If they wasn’t good people they wouldn’t be my friends.
Scene 3 - Lucky Eights
Ariel Lavery: Despite Ben and Yvonne’s move away from religion, and finding less and less reason to continue believing in God, they do seem to have this weird relationship with luck.
(Festive music begins)
Ben Hart: Our local chili restaurant chain, Skyline Chili, was celebrating their 50th anniversary with a giveaway, and I entered the contest and I was one of the finalists.
Austin Carter: First off, anyone from Northern Kentucky knows that Skyline Chili is delicious, but this was a huge moment for them.
Ben Hart: On October the 8th. The 8 is kinda significant.
Yvonne Hart: Oh that’s really strange. My husband was born on the 8th. I was born on an 8th. My son Robbie was born on an 8th. My son John was born on the 8th. Michael… yeah Michael was born on the 8th too, the child that we lost. Ben was the only one. Ben was born on the 1st. He had to ruin the whole thing. So, 8s just kinda run in our family.
Ben Hart: I started to think I was psychic there for a minute.
Austin Carter: So now Been can divine things in the future, through the number eight.
Ben Hart: And I told my wife as we were getting ready, I says, you know what? I think I’m gonna win this. She says well if you win can we go to Hawaii?
So anyway we get over there. And they hand out these little tickets.
Ariel Lavery: They have one of those big raffle drums.
Ben Hart: With 250 envelopes. Well, they drew number 405. And my number was 397 and they were going up. 397 from 405 just happens to be 8.
Austin Carter & Ariel Lavery: (laughing) Oooh there it is.
Ariel Lavery: So they finally got to his number.
Ben Hart: By then most of the boxes were gone.
Ariel Lavery: He goes up to the table and sees two groups of boxes left and one sitting on it’s own and thinks...
Ben Hart: I think I’ll take the orphan.
Austin Carter: I think it’s funny that he called it the orphan. Seems like a very 'Ben' thing to do.
Ariel Lavery: Oh and the numbers on the back of the box were significant too.
Yvonne Hart: The numbers on the back of the box that he took had 1-888- SKYLINE.
Ben Hart: And they had darkened the inside of those 8s to keep track of that box.
Ariel Lavery & Austin Carter: (Surprised reactions)
Ben Hart: And ah, I opened my box and there was just a white piece of paper there. So I pushed the piece of paper away and there was a styrofoam check that says you are the winner of $50,000.
Yvonne Hart: And all of a sudden Ben hollered, I got it I got it!
Ariel Lavery & Austin Carter: Woohoo! (Laughing)
Ben Hart: I shook my head, told them I wanted to take pictures. (Laughing) But that was a trip. That was a trip. And we did go to Hawaii.
Scene 4 - How to be an atheist
Austin Carter: So that whole thing with the luck of the eights seems inexplicable in Ben and Yvonne’s world, free of divine influence.
Ariel Lavery: Yeah, but I guess they have enough evidence to believe that there’s something significant about it.
Austin Carter: Well that’s true I guess.
Ariel Lavery: I did ask him if he thought there was maybe some scientific explanation or evidence for the lucky number 8.
Ben Hart: I doubt it.
Ariel Lavery: And I wanted to know what atheism meant to Ben, given his experience with luck and hearing about his upbringing. And he kinda outlined his whole logic.
(Methodical music begins)
Ben Hart: Religion is a very… sensitive thing. If religion was true, there’d only be one religion in the whole world. Religion is a matter of geography. If you were born in India of Hindu parents in a Hindu village, don’t you think you’d be a Hindu? You get into a group… you don’t want to argue with ‘em… and you start thinking the same way they do. If God was… why hasn’t he come and made himself visible and said, "Hey, here I am and this is what I want and this is what I’ll do." There’s just there’s no evidence so, why do you believe in it?
Austin Carter: Hmmm, I keep thinking about how Ben got from growing up surrounded by religion to being such an advocate for atheism that he pursued this license plate through this whole drawn-out lawsuit. Early on he had no idea that atheism was even an option, right?
Ben Hart: It didn’t even occur to me. I mean everybody I knew was religious. They were very good people and I didn’t see anything wrong with it.
Ariel Lavery: I asked him later how he found community as an outspoken atheist in a region that is more populated by Christians.
Ben Hart: Well, I was working at the post office in 1993. And there were several other of the employees there that were atheist too. And then I found out that there was a group that was called the Cincinnati Atheists.
Austin Carter: He was still living in Cincinnati at the time?
Ariel Lavery: Yup. And that’s where he met Matt who became a good friend of his.
Austin Carter: So, I grew up going to a Baptist church and I know what that looks like, but what do people do at an atheist meetup?
Ariel Lavery: According to Matt these were just kind of laid back gatherings…
Matt Kovac: … Where you get together and meet people that didn’t force you to have to say anything or do anything. You didn’t have to tell us your life story.
Ariel Lavery: Ben told me there were lots of different groups in this area that do different things like have public speakers, or some do more advocacy work.
Ben Hart: Ours was just basically a social group.
Ariel Lavery: Matt told me that while Ben was in this group, he started really crusading against public displays of religion on government property.
Matt Kovac: He did, he noticed stuff like that very easily and always would catch it and bring it to people’s attention. I was really surprised.
Ben Hart: God or Jesus or any of that is not mentioned in the constitution or the declaration of independence.
(Patriotic music begins)
Ariel Lavery: So this is where I really started going down a rabbit hole, looking for evidence of this recently held notion that America is inherently this Christian nation. And it’s true, nowhere in our US constitution do you see an invocation of God or Jesus. The only time anything like this is mentioned is in article 7 where it says…
Ben Hart: In the year of our Lord 1776. But that was just a common phrase.
Austin Carter: He really knows his history.
Ben Hart: Jefferson said it pretty clearly that there was a wall of separation between church and state.
Ariel Lavery: When Thomas Jefferson was president, wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association that the wall of separation between church and state prohibited the state from establishing a religion or restricting the free exercise of religion.
Austin Carter: I’ve kinda wondered about this because you definitely see invocations of God in other government-issued materials?
Ben Hart: It’s just like, "In God we trust” on the money. It wasn’t on the bills until 1957.
Ariel Lavery: This is technically true, but it had been stamped on our two-cent coins back in 1864.
Austin Carter: What, I didn’t know any of that. We had two-cent coins?
Ariel Lavery: (Laughing) Imagine that!
Ben Hart: It wasn't on the Pledge of Allegiance, “One nation under God” until 1954.
Ariel Lavery: And one reason it was added, it is thought, was because the US was entering the cold war under Eisenhower and this was an attempt to set the US apart from communist nations by inserting Christian rhetoric into our documents. The irony in this little side story is the original author of the pledge of allegiance, Francis Bellamy, is thought by some to have been a socialist.
Austin Carter: History always has these little nuances that surprise you the more you look.
Ariel Lavery: So true! Anyway, that’s the end of this history lesson. So all of that led Ben to advocating for the secular United States.
Austin Carter: And some might say agitating.
Ben Hart: There was a ah nativity scene in Addyston, OH.
Ariel Lavery: He saw this nativity scene that was sitting in front of some government property and got ahold of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. And they promptly wrote a letter to the mayor saying.
Ben Hart: … That it was illegal. Well, the way they got around it was they added Santi-Claus and snowmen and stuff like that so it wasn’t just religion so that technically, that was legal.
Austin Carter: And there was another one wasn’t there?
Ben Hart: I was up in Brookville, IN, and they had a big nativity scene there.
Ariel Lavery: Yeah, and this one went even further.
Ben Hart: It went to court and they took it down.
Austin Carter: Yikes. Going to court over a nativity scene seems like it might be a bit extreme to some of the people that I grew up around.
Ariel Lavery: Yeah, it might be. But Ben sees this as important work because of what the alternative could be.
Ben Hart: If they get away with a little one, then they’ll get away with a bigger one, then they’ll get away with a bigger one, and it just keeps on.
Austin Carter: I mean I totally appreciate what he’s talking about and, as kind of an agnostic, I can identify with this fear, but it just seems maybe a little extreme to be attacking these gestures.
Ariel Lavery: Maybe? Or maybe not? The more I think about this, the more I wonder how many American’s would be more comfortable walking around a town center or through government buildings without religious imagery around them?
Ben Hart: The thing a lot of people don’t seem to understand is, about 25% of the country now are nones. They don’t belong to a church, they don’t belong to a religion. They don’t call themselves atheists.
Austin Carter: Well, that would be me.
Ariel Lavery: Really? Me too! Has that ever made you feel less American?
Austin Carter: It doesn’t really make me feel less American because I think everyone is entitled to their beliefs, but it does make me feel less connected to this huge part of the culture.
Ariel Lavery: Yeah, I’ve had that feeling as well. But not Ben! He sees himself as wholly American, perhaps more so because he’s an atheist! He's just not subscribing to the same religious views as the majority.
Ben Hart: Personally I am an independent patriotic American.
Austin Carter: I'm starting to see why you said he may be one of the most patriotic people you know.
Ariel Lavery: Yeah! There were so many nuances to his patriotism too… like the way he worked American imagery into this design he made for an atheist logo.
Ben Hart: There were several atheist designs and none of them actually appealed to me.
Ariel Lavery: I did a Google search for atheist logo and most of them look pretty similar to each other. They use a capital A in the center. Some incorporate the atomic symbol. Some look weirdly like the star trek insignia.
Austin Carter: Cool. (Laugh)
Ariel Lavery: But he wanted America in there!
(Patriotic music begins)
Ben Hart: I decided to make it American: red, white and blue. I took the 13 stars from the Betsy Ross flag on a blue background and then I took the atomic symbol for science, and then I put an A in the middle of that for atheist.
Austin Carter: Definitely sounds patriotic! (Laughs) Does he also have patriotic symbology on his car or around his plate since that’s where so much of his battle has been fought?
Ariel Lavery: I did ask him about that. And I’ll show you some pictures he sent me, AND we’ll get into the crux of his story with the license plate crusade, right after the break.
Scene 5 (a) - Applying for the plate
Ariel Lavery: Ok, so when we left off, I just finished making my case for why Ben is such a patriot.
Austin Carter: Yes. And now I want to know, if he’s such a patriot does he also have an American flag on his car?
Ariel Lavery: Well, he sent me this picture.
Austin Carter: Ok. It’s a picture of his car parked in front of an American flag. Is this hanging on his house?
Ariel Lavery: Yup.
Austin Carter: And he’s got a sticker on there that says “secular vote.” A sticker for the ACLU. And across the top of the rear window it says “We the People.”
Ariel Lavery: The first three words in the preamble to the constitution.
Austin Carter: If I was behind this car at a traffic light I’d definitely be thinking this person is a patriot, and has a respect for the constitution.Then there’s that license plate...
Ben Hart: I’d had the license plate IM GOD in Ohio for 12 years. So when I moved to KY, I applied for the same plate over here.
Austin Carter: So in this picture the license plate has I-M space G-O-D. And as an atheist, what was Ben’s aim in calling himself as a deity?
(Questionsing music begins)
Ben Hart: Well, I thought it was a matter of getting people to enter into a conversation about it. And they could tell me how they felt and I could tell them how I felt. It gave me a chance to explain my position.
But nobody asked me anything. They just totally ignore it. Very few times have I had a comment on it.
Ariel Lavery: But the few times he has had comments on it, they tend to just challenge him and say…
Ben Hart: ...Well you’re not God. And I’ll say, well I tell you what, I gotta $100 bill I’ve been carrying for 20 years for the first person that can prove that I'm not God. Now you go right ahead.
Ariel Lavery: There was a story of a woman in Texas who challenged him.
Ben Hart: “Well I can’t prove it but I know you’re not God.” Well I’m not the God of the bible. I’m the God of the dictionary. The American Heritage dictionary has six definitions for God. And number 5 is a very handsome man. And my wife says I’m a very handsome man. And nobody argues with my wife.
Ariel Lavery & Austin Carter: (Laughter and ‘ughs’)
Yvonne Hart: Yeah he tells everybody that story.
Ben Hart: And I still got the $100 so.
Austin Carter: So that explains his philosophy behind the plate. But the story really takes off once he comes back to his home state of Kentucky.
Ariel Lavery: Right. And, I just have to say, I think the fact that he and Yvonne moved to a town called Independence, is a bit significant. Could you find a more fitting name of a town for Ben to move to?
Austin Carter: Yeah that’s a good point.
Ben Hart: So when I moved to Kentucky I applied for the same plate over here. Well they sent me a letter saying it was denied because it was obscene and vulgar.
Ariel Lavery: Obscene and vulgar
Ben Hart: Say what? So I got ahold of the Freedom from Religion Foundation. And they wrote ‘em a letter. And they says well, it’s not obscene and vulgar but it’s distracting. There were some letters back and forth.
Ariel Lavery: In one of these letters the state came back and said, well it wasn’t obscene and vulgar but it was "offensive to good taste and decency".
Ben Hart: And finally they got ahold of the ACLU in Louisville and they decided they would take the case. November of 2016 they filed a lawsuit in federal court.
Ariel Lavery: 6 months go by and then...
Ben Hart: The state filed for dismissal. And the judge sat on it for a full year before he answered it. And he said he wasn’t going to dismiss it. It was going to go to trial. And I was kinda worried about the judge.
Ariel Lavery: So this was ironic. You remember the moment Ben chose to become an atheist right?
Austin Carter: Yeah. He couldn't believe God drowned all the babies in the world in the story of Noah’s ark.
Ben Hart: This is the same judge that ok’d the ark. To get tax benefits for the ark.
Austin Carter: So this is the Ark Encounter theme park that’s in Northern Kentucky that we’re talking about?
Ariel Lavery: Right!
Austin Carter: Seems kind of a weird coincidence. I would also think this judge who would’ve ‘okay’d money for the ark, might have an affinity for Christian leaning and government.
Ariel Lavery; Right? So the lawsuit is under way, and while this plate is in litigation Ben’s picture with his Ohio plate that says IM GOD becomes famous.
(Fast-paced worldwide news music)
Ben Hart: The newspapers picked it up. The Washington Post called and I gave them an interview. Fox news called and I gave them an interview. When it was first filed the Louisville Courier Journal called and I gave them an interview. The Cincinnati Enquirer called and I gave them an interview. And the BBC picked it up and it went around the world.
Austin Carter: So this conversation Ben’s wanted to have about his plate, he was finally having with the press.
Ariel Lavery: I think he was definitely seeing his views on patriotism and religion play out with all the media attention.
Ben Hart: I’m-I’m just absolutely amazed that this thing took on a life of its own.
Scene 5 (b) - The state’s reaction
Ariel Lavery: But here’s where the plot starts the thicken. I spoke to someone else named Karen Chadwell, who was inadvertently affected by this lawsuit.
Karen Chadwell: They sent me this letter.
Ariel Lavery: She applied for the plate Jesus1 in 2017. While Ben’s lawsuit was sitting on the judge’s desk. And she got the same letter in the mail that Ben did.
Karen Chadwell: Dear Ms Chadwell, Personalized plates are regulated by the Kentucky revised division… (audio fades. Ariel Lavery talks over)
Ariel Lavery: The letter listed a couple of different requirements her request for the Jesus1 license plate did not meet. And then said…
Karen Chadwell: These laws dictate that a personal license plate may not be vulgar or obscene.
Austin Carter: What??
Karen Chadwell: Vulgar? Obscene? What’s wrong with these people?
Ariel Lavery: Yeah, she was totally surprised, as many probably would be. She also operates out of this assumption that we are inherently a Christian nation and couldn’t believe a plate promoting this would be so contentious.
Karen Chadwell: This country was founded on God. We even have it on our money. And how could they say that having a Jesus1 plate is vulgar or obscene.
Ariel Lavery: Ben knew about this rejection as well, and found it just as appalling.
Ben Hart: That same license plate, there’s a lady in Ohio that had Jesus1! I thought that was really great too! You know it was very unusual and the state of Ohio gave it to her there was no problem.
Ariel Lavery: I asked Karen if she knew anyone else that had their plate rejected, any friends that also wanted faith-based plates.
Karen Chadwell: The only person I knew it affected was the gentlemen who wanted the I am God plate. And I spoke to them about that when I called them. I said, we live in a free country.
Austin Carter: Wow, she called them up and defended Ben?
Ariel Lavery: Yeah!
Karen Chadwell: I said, honestly, if I came up on his car and saw the I am God plate I would pray for him because I know he isn’t God. But I still believe that we live in a free country and he should have whatever plate he wants on there.
Ben Hart: Well, the lady who had the PRAY4 plate, she backed me up too. She thought I should have the plate.
Ariel Lavery: There was another woman who was denied PRAY4 around this same time. There was also a plate that a veteran applied for that got denied later in 2019.
Ben Hart: Infidel. He was in Iran and the enemy called them infidels.
Ariel Lavery: These vets took the label on as a badge of honor. And Ben had seen another plate driving around that seemed like it would have been in the same classification as his IM GOD.
Ben Hart: Me Devil. IM GOD is not good, but me devil is alright.
Austin Carter: Well, maybe it was the devil?
Ariel Lavery: (laughs) And Maybe Ben is God? (Both laugh)
Austin Carter: So how did the state justify this?
Ariel Lavery: I guess they thought me devil was not “offensive to good taste and decency” like they wrote in their letter back to the Freedom for Religion Foundation. I did try to get someone from the committee that reviews vanity plates in Kentucky to talk to me about their process, but they declined my request.
Austin Carter: Oh that’s too bad.
Ariel Lavery: Yeah, they have gotten a lot of attention from the press already over this lawsuit. I think they’re known now for denying the most famous license plate in the world! (Both laugh) But I did get someone from the Ohio department of transportation to explain their process to me, which I thought was great because that’s the actual license plate pictured in the famous photo.
Charlie Norman: My name is Charlie Norman and I am the state registrar of motor vehicles for the state of Ohio.
(Manic music with female choir singing “la la la la la” begins)
Ariel Lavery: So there’s a single committee that reviews all the questionable requests that get submitted from around the state.
Charlie Norman: So that committee meets each morning about 9 am. They just go over those names, they do some research online and then they make a recommendation that comes up to the registrar's office on whether we should approve or deny a plate.
Ariel Lavery: They have a set of guidelines by which they adhere to.
Charlie Norman: We’re allowed to turn down anything that’s overtly profane, obscene, scattalogical, is likely to provoke a violent response or promotes lawlessness.
Ariel Lavery: And much of their guidelines are based on a lawsuit.
Charlie Norman: ...a lawsuit against the state of Ohio over vanity plates many years ago.
Austin Carter: Hmm, sounds familiar...
Ariel Lavery: Charlie said he wouldn't be surprised if many state’s plate guidelines are generated out of a lawsuit. So they look at these set of guidelines in combination with insight and research that they do in some kinda unusual places.
Charlie Norman: This sounds crazy, but they do research on Urban Dictionary.
Austin Carter: How do you get that job?! I think I might be good at it!
Ariel Lavery: (Laugh) Oh yeah, are you good at reading coded indecency? Because I was puzzling over many of the denied plates and couldn't come up with their meaning. Like this one...what does IMNX2C mean?
Austin Carter: That’s so obvious!
Ariel Lavery: It is?
Austin Carter: I’m in ecstasy!
Ariel Lavery: Ok you are good at this. Or I’m just really bad at this (Both laugh). But I think the Kentucky review committee may be getting extra creative imagining plates that could be inappropriate. Karen Chadwell told me about another plate request of hers they held up that was RIDE HD, for ride Harley Davidson, because she's a motorcycle enthusiast. But they asked her…
Karen Chadwell: We want to know why you want to ride Harry David.
(Both laugh a lot)
Austin Carter: Ohhh, that is funny. I wonder if it’s going a bit too far.
Ariel Lavery: It might be a little bit too far. So the really funny thing about all this rejection the state was doing was that ultimately, a lot of these rejections were happening because of Ben’s lawsuit.
Austin Carter: What do you mean?
Ariel Lavery: Well, as soon as this lawsuit was sitting on the judge’s desk, at the end of 2016, the state started scrambling to recall other plates around the state that seemed to promote religion. The PRAY4 plate that Ben mentioned earlier was recalled after his lawsuit was filed. And the state started denying requests for plates that seemed to promote religion, just like it did for Karen Chadwell.
Austin Carter: That seems like an odd response.
Ariel Lavery: Well, the reason they were doing this, was because of a provision in state law that says that vanity plates “shall not have as its primary purpose the promotion of any specific faith, religion, or antireligion.”
Austin Carter: What? But there were already so many plates out there that seem to do that.
Ariel Lavery: Yeah, well, it seemed here that the state may had been in clear violation of its own laws. As for the judge…
Austin Carter: The Ark judge.
Ben Hart: And the judge said you know hey, you can’t have love God and for God and and pray 4 and all that other stuff and then disallow the I’m God.
I won the case, and ah, it just kinda kept growing.
Austin Carter: So what about that Kentucky statute that prohibits plates from promoting religion?
Ariel Lavery: Well, apparently that statute was supposed to be removed. It was supposed to happen earlier this year, but due to COVID things got delayed.
(Heroic french horn music begins)
Austin Carter: Wow, so Ben’s lawsuit is actually opening the door for religious people to more freely express their faith on their license plates.
Ariel Lavery: Yes! I think it’s amazing the way this all worked out. It’s almost ingenious when you think about it. Ben chose to use this space that is protected by free speech, the license plate, to express his anti-religious independence. But this is also a free speech space that must be issued by the government. So he’s essentially forced the state of Kentucky to acknowledge his first amendment rights as an atheist while simultaneously giving his religious countrymen back their right to this particular freedom of speech .
Austin Carter: Well hallelujah!
Ariel Lavery: (Laugh) So, despite the way Ben might be seen as an agitator for some of his efforts, I can really say I agree with him.
Ben Hart: I’m the knight in shining armor (Laugh). I don’t have much armor, but I’m doing what I think is the correct and right thing to do!
Austin Carter: Defender of the First Amendment!
Ben Hart: That’s the most sacred thing that was ever written.
I still have my Ohio plate on the front. That’s the most famous plate in the world. My Kentucky plate is the most expensive plate in the country.
Conclusion
Ariel Lavery: So I’m pretty sure this legal win has been the apex of Ben’s atheistic career. Amber Duke, the communications director at the ACLU said they are so thankful for people like Ben, who are willing to tough it out for the First Amendment. And he’s winning an award!
Austin Carter: Oh yeah! You hinted at that at the top of the episode. What is it?
Ben Hart: Uh, Free Thinker of the Year.
Ariel Lavery: It's coming from the Freedom From Religion Foundation. He’s recorded an acceptance speech which we have a link to on our website. And he got this beautiful little plaque.
Austin Carter: Aw that’s wonderful.
(Heroic french horn music continues)
Ariel Lavery: And now I think he’s really focusing on his health, his 82-year-old heart, and spending time with his family. He and his wife have such a wonderful relationship. And he made these necklaces for both of them to wear that display his atheist logo.
Ben Hart: My wife and I both have a necklace with it. I had it printed out on aluminum plates.
Austin Carter: That’s sweet. They have such a traditional relationship for being a little bit nontraditional in other ways.
Ariel Lavery: That’s very true. They’ve had a good life together and have a lot to be proud of.
Yvonne Hart: We think so too. We’re very very lucky, uh, for two smart asses I guess. (Laugh) Got married, and everybody said oh it’s not gonna work and we proved to them that we did. 63 years and what it’ll be 64? (Ben Hart in background “Mmhmm”) It’ll be 64 in November.
Credits:
You can find all the images and videos we talked about in this episode on our website middleofeverywherepod.org. While you’re there you can sign up for our newsletter so you’ll always be the first to know about exciting updates and new episodes.
This episode of Middle of Everywhere was produced by me, Ariel Lavery, with editorial help from my cohost, Austin Carter. Our Editor is Naomi Starobin. Our theme music was composed and recorded by Time on the String sound studio in Paducah, Kentucky. Other scoring was from APM music. Marketing and sponsorship support comes from Dixie Lynn. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at middleofeverywherepod. Middle of Everywhere is a production of WKMS and PRX. This program is made possible, in part, by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private organization funded by the American people.
(Music fades)