Britain pulls offensive personal plates

WORCESTERSHIRE, England, Oct. 4 (UPI) -- Two of 1,600 personalized license plates to be auctioned by a British agency were pulled after a gay rights group complained, officials said.

Stonewall, a gay rights charity, objected to two registrations: F4 GOT and D1 KES. They said the tags could be read as FAGOT and DIKES, derogatory terms against gays and lesbians, The Mail on Sunday reported.

Each plate had a $1,434 reserve bid.

"All publicly funded bodies should act appropriately when approving language that is potentially offensive to any community," James Lawrence, a Stonewall spokesman said.

The auction is set for Wednesday. The controversial plates are listed in the catalogue, but will be pulled by the auctioneers.

The Britain's Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency has a list of what it calls "suppressed combinations" or "potentially sensitive registration marks." These include 054MA, which could be seen to resemble the first name of al-Qaida mastermind Osama Bin Laden; H057 AGE (HOSTAGE); MA56 ACA (MASSACRE); HE58 0LA (HEZBOLLAH); and BU58 0MB (BUS BOMB).