‘Sig Hil’ Vanity Plate Gets Through Oregon Official May Revoke It Because Of Aryan Message

The vanity license plates on Nason Cox’s souped-up 1969 Chevy El Camino read “SIG HIL.” Add a couple of “E’s” and Cox’s message becomes clearer: “Sieg Heil.”

The plates were issued with the approval of Robin Bjurstrom, the Oregon Division of Motor Vehicles employee who decides whether personalized plates are too offensive to pass muster.

On Monday, she was considering revoking the plates after they became the subject of a newspaper column and at least one complaint.

When the “SIG HIL” plate request first crossed her desk, Bjurstrom said she thought that “maybe it stands for Signal Hill in Long Beach, Calif.”

Actually it stands for Sieg Heil, the Nazi war salute meaning “hail to victory.”

Cox, an Oregon City man who owns a sheet metal company, said he wanted that message on his license plate to emphasize his right-wing beliefs and to show that the country is moving in the wrong direction.

“If you listen to Rush Limbaugh and you are a god-fearing Christian and believe in ultra-right things, you are compared to a Nazi,” Cox said.

The plates became an issue Monday after publication of a Jonathan Nicholas column in The Oregonian newspaper describing the plates.

Nicholas quoted Cox as saying that “if Hitler were such a bad guy, why are we doing the same things: taking guns away from citizens and killing human fetuses?”

Nicholas also noted that Cox has another vehicle with the license plate “AK47.”

Marvin Stern, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League in Seattle, condemned the “SIG HIL” plates.

“I would submit that the reference is offensive not only to Holocaust survivors and Jews, but probably to all of those who fought in World War II and those in Oregon who lost family members fighting that regime,” Stern said.

Bjurstrom said she was considering revoking the plates under a state regulation that prohibiting words that ridicule or support superiority of a class of people.

She rejects several license plates per week by people who try to promote drug messages such as “TOKIN,” or a host of vulgarities, including some that cannot be detected unless they are viewed through a mirror.

Her department formerly rejected religious messages on license plates, but this policy was changed following an appeal by someone who wanted the word “pray” on a license plate.

Rabbi Emanuel Rose of Temple Beth Israel in Portland said he had mixed feelings about the “SIG HIL” license plate.

“It conjures up in our mind Hitler’s Europe,” he said. “But the greatness of this country is you have the right to say things whether other people like it or not.”