Indiana Bureau Of Motor Vehicle Repeated Denies State Gay Youth Group Speciality License Plates So Group Backed By ACLU Files Suit, Indiana Bakery Refuses To Create Rainbow Coloured Cupcakes To Honour National Coming Out Day Because They Are “Family-Run,” Harvard University Will Continue To Bar ROTC From Campus Until Military Ends Policy Banning Openly Gay Service Members

The Indiana Youth Group – a state advocacy and support group for gay teens – is asked a federal judge to force the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to grant it a speciality license plate, the IYG twice denied in its request for speciality plate, arguing in the lawsuit filed Thursday that the BMV applies arbitrary and unconstitutional standards to approve or deny license plates to non-profits, according to a report from the Indianapolis Star. The lawsuit, filed by American Civil Liberties of Indiana, argues that the BMV has no clear protocol to evaluate plates, and is instead allowing unilateral discretion to the agency, and that discretion contradicts the First Amendment. A spokesperson for the BMV, Dennis Rosebrough, said that the process of application is an open and fair one, but that there is some subjectivity when determining whether a group’s request is in the “public interest.” He explained the Indiana Youth Group’s application was denied because it failed to provide evidence its services have a state-wide impact, and because it intended to use funds from the license plates to pay staff salaries, which violates state law. Speciality license plates can raise considerable funds for a group, as well as raise the public profile of sponsoring organizations. The Indiana Youth group was founded in 1987, and provides state-wide programs and support systems for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth who are struggling with their identities. In 2006, the state Bureau of Motor Vehicles approved a speciality plate for “Choose Life,” sponsoring the Indiana Association of Pregnancy Centers, an organization that intends to persuade pregnant women to choose alternatives to abortion.

Also in Indiana, Indianapolis’ WXIN-59 reports on a local bakery that refused to honour a request to bake rainbow-coloured cupcakes to commemorate October’s “National Coming Out Day” by a LGBT student group from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. Just Cookies, a bakery inside City Market, refused to complete the order, co-owner David Stockton saying “I explained we’re a family-run business, we have two young, impressionable daughters and we thought maybe it was not best to do that.” The order was placed at another bakery.

The Boston Globe on a reiteration by Harvard University not to permit ROTC on campus until a ban on openly gay service members is repealed, that according to President Drew Gilpin Faust. Harvard initially expelled the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps in 1969 during the height of the Vietnam War, but their absence today is solely to due to the policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” Faust saying that Harvard bars discrimination by all undergraduate groups.