When news broke that Indiana Youth Group (IYG) had finally won the right to a specialty license plate earlier this year, the win was hailed by LGBT activists as a progress in a state with few LGBT protections.
IYG, an organization that serves LGBTQ youth, battled for four years to get the plate. But in early March, the state's Bureau of Motorized Vehicles (BMV) revoked the plate after a group of Republican Senators accused IYG of violating their contract.
According to a letter signed by 20 Indiana lawmakers, IYG violated its contract with the state by selling low-numbered specialty plates on its website.
A letter from the BMV to IYG states that such a transaction is illegal and that after following up on the senators' request to investigate, the bureau has decided to suspend the plates.
Mary Byrne, executive director of IYG, said the organization did not sell the plates. Rather, she said, IYG sent them as thank-you gifts to donors, much like public television stations do for those who donate during pledge drives.
"There's no way we wouldn't have done this if we didn't see other organizations doing this," said Byrne. "We were a little bit more blatant about it, for sure, but we were using them as thank-you gifts."
Byrne maintains the IYG did not violate its contract and that senators had found a loophole to pull the plates because they disagreed with state's decision to issue an LGBT-specific plate.
"It's like an acknowledgement that we exist," said Byrne. "I don't think that they even want us to exist."
However, BMV spokesman Dennis Rosebrough told the Indianapolis Star that officials had found information on how to purchase plates on IYG's website. According to that report, the BMV found similar information on the websites of Greenways Foundation and the 4-H Foundation
and consequently suspended those specialty plates, too.
It took IYG four years to get its specialty plate. The state rejected the organization's first two applications before the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana filed suit. The state approved the plate as part of a settlement.
LGBT-rights activists praised the new license plate as an unlikely win for LGBT Hoosiers, who lack most LGBT protections and openly gay political leaders.
Byrne said the next steps remain unclear. The organization's board is scheduled to meet in the coming days to discuss the plate suspension. What is at stake, she said, is significant.
"Ultimately, [the plate] says 'we've arrived,'"Byrne said. "We're here."
