Georgia's Department of Transportation may be facing a serious legal challenge from members of a local Ku Klux Klan group that filed an application last month to adopt a mile's worth of Route 515 as part of the state's Adopt-A-Highway program.

If the Georgia DOT rejects the request, the International Keystone Knights of the KKK has already vowed to sue.

And they'll likely win: A similar effort to prevent the KKK from adopting a stretch of Interstate 55 south of St. Louis resulted in a court ruling that barred the Missouri DOT from excluding the Klan from the program on the basis of their ideology, citing the group's First Amendment rights.

"We just want to clean up the doggone road," said 34-year-old Harley Hanson, exalted cyclops of the Klan's Realm of Georgia. "We're not going to be out there in robes."

The only other option currently available to Georgia other than accepting the application is abandoning the 23-year-old program that currently involves over 4,100 individuals beautifying some 200 miles of roadway throughout the Peach State.

The Georgia DOT will decide today how to proceed after a meeting with the state Attorney General's Office.

[photo via AP]