No Religious Vanity Plates Please, We're From Vermont

From the Religion Clause blog:

A Vermont federal Magistrate Judge has concluded that a challenge to the state Department of Motor Vehicles policy on vanity licence plates should be rejected. The policy prohibits the issuance of plates displaying religious references. Today's Rutland (VT) Herald says that the magistrate's report concluded that "The DMV has the right to prohibit religious messages on license plates provided it does not discriminate based on the particular message or viewpoint." Shawn Byrne, who applied for plates with the number "JN36TN" (referring to the biblical verse John 3:16), already lost his attempt to obtain a preliminary injunction when he first filed the case in 2005. (See prior posting.) Attorneys have until Aug. 27 to file objections to the recent Magistrate's report. Lawyer Jeremy Tedesco said Byrne will continue to press his claim that the state's policy amounts to unconstitutional discrimination against religious viewpoints.

If I am reading this policy right, under it a driver could obtain a "JFK RULES" plate but not a "JESUS RULES" plate. Is the magistrate's ruling that the policy does not discriminate on the basis of the message or viewpoint correct? Certainly, all religious messages and viewpoints are forbidden, but competeing secular messages and viewpoints are permitted. No?

I am not very good at text messaging, but I bet many of you could come up with dozens of examples of similar 8 or 9 digit secular and religious messages that the policy would apply to (forbidding the one and permitting the other). I will start this off: "PRAY" verboten, but "THINK" permitted; "GOD CR8S" verboten, but "DARWIN" or "EVOLUTN" permitted.

I am constantly surprised by the creative energy some governments burn finding ways to suppress the religious expression of their citizens.