Oklahoma City Man Suing State In Fight Over Pro-LGBT License Plate

A metro man is now suing the state in his fight for a personalized license plate to support the LGBT community. He filed the lawsuit Monday in district court.

John Keefe is a married father of three and a vocal supporter of the gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender (LGBT) community's fight for equality; a position he wanted to share on a personalized license plate.

But the tax commission denied his request for a personalized plate that read “LGBTALY”, saying the license plate was sexual in nature. So Keefe filed the open records request asking for a list of all the personalized plates that were accepted and denied.

“We sent it twice over certified mail and over two months have passed. No response. Nothing. Silence. Death. Whatever you want to call it,” said Keefe.

3/23/2015 Related Story: OK Tax Commission Denies Pro-LGBT License Plate

So Keefe is suing the tax commission and asking for a judge to step in and require them to hand over the documents.

“If they won't even acknowledge you've tendered a request for documents, I don't know what other relief is available,” said Keefe's attorney Charles Broadway.

According to the ACLU, STR8SXI is an existing license plate, as is STR8FAN. And Sunday night, someone snapped a picture of a license plate saying: SEXYQT.

Keefe believes a list of approved and denied plates will help him as he appeals the decision to deny his plate, although he questions why the state is even fighting him on it in the first place.

“Why are they wasting our money and our time on it?” asked Keefe.

A hearing on the license plate with the tax commission will be in June. More than 100 people have signed an online petition, asking the tax commission to reverse their decision and allow the license plate.

Learn how you can sign the petition.

A spokesperson for the OK tax commission told News 9 that the tax commission meets all open records requests, and if they are in litigation they respond to all requests in discovery.