A Federal Judge has ruled in favor of parties seeking to prevent South Carolina from issuing the license plate set forth above:
COLUMBIA, S.C. — A federal judge ruled Tuesday that South Carolina can’t issue license plates showing the image of a cross in front of a stained glass window along with the phrase “I Believe.”
U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie’s ruling said the license plate was unconstitutional because it violates the First Amendment ban on establishment of religion by government.
(…)
The fight over the plates started shortly after Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer helped push the legislation through in 2008. Groups including Americans United for Separation of Church and State and American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee challenged the state’s ability to put a religious message on a state license tag.
The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, said government must never be allowed give favorable treatment to one faith above others.
“That’s unconstitutional and un-American. Some officials seem to want to use religion as a political football,” Lynn said, calling it an “appalling misuse of governmental authority, and I am thrilled that the judge put a stop to it.”
Currie ordered the state to cover those groups’ legal expenses.
Her ruling singled out Bauer after he pushed a tag Christian advocates sought in Florida, but legislators there did not approve.
Bauer wanted to accomplish in South Carolina what had been unsuccessful in Florida, Currie wrote: To “gain legislative approval of a specialty plate promoting the majority religion: Christianity. Whether motivated by sincerely held Christian beliefs or an effort to purchase political capital with religious coin, the result is the same. The statute is clearly unconstitutional and defense of its implementation has embroiled the state in unnecessary (and expensive) litigation.”
Bauer said he wasn’t surprised by the ruling and would like to see it appealed.
“I don’t expect anything different from a liberal judge who was appointed by Bill Clinton,” Bauer said. “If she wants to single me out, so be it.”
Idiot, and by idiot I mean Bauer, who obviously is doing this for political gain.
The Federal Judge clearly made the right decision here.
Einstein was once asked about the difference between genius & stupidity. He replied, “Genius has limits.”
There goes my hope for a Wiccan license plate. =)
Clearly? Not hardly. These are called “vanity” plates for a reason: they reflect the vanity of the person to whom they are issued.
We’ve certainly gone a long way from being able to reject a state-endorsed message on a license plate (“Live Free or Die”; Wooley v. Maynard) to being unable to place YOUR OWN message on a license plate, especially if it’s religiously-oriented.
This is anti-religious bigotry, pure and simple. While I expect it from you, Doug, I expect better from the Federal judiciary.
Though probably not from a Clinton appointee.
There is no right to place your own message on a plate. The plate is state property, issued in persuance of registration of vehicles. Some states allow so-called vanity registration numbers, but even those are screened to dis-allow anything the state does not want on there. The point is, anything the plate says issues from and is approved by THE STATE, therefore has to pass constitutional restrictions.
I agree that the judge made the right decision.
As I Christian and Libertarian I agree that the Federal Government made a good call this time. If you want your faith displayed on your car, get a bumper sticker. But don’t expect or demand that the STATE to create an official document (in this case a metal one that hangs on the back of a vehicle) that would seem to endorse your religious beliefs. I for one, surely don’t want any religious belief owned or advertised by the STATE- even the ones I agree with.
Jokaconis, having earned his law degree via correspondence school, I wouldn’t expect him to recognize what is called a “limited public forum.” Basically, if the government opens up an area to limited speech, with some restrictions, it cannot allow some speech but discriminate against other speech on the basis of the “religious content” of the speech. Clearly, the state did not have to open up license plates to speech at all, but once it did, it cannot discriminate against certain speech based solely upon the “religious” nature of the speech.
The only other issue is whether the state, by allowing the free speech of certain Christians, was “endorsing” their point of view. That is the basis of the ruling, I presume (as Little Dougie omitted the Judge’s “reasoning”). And if I presumed correctly, the judge’s reasoning is absurd. It assumes that citizens are all idiots and can’t figure out the difference between allowing all citizens to freely express themselves without endorsing any of what those citizens say, as opposed to the notion that if the state allows the citizen to voice an opinion, therefore the state MUST be endorsing that viewpoint. That is why it should be equally valid for a plate to say “I believe” as it would be for one to say “I don’t believe” or “Eat at Joe’s.”
I pity godless heathen and “libertarians” who are such craven folks that they can’t be exposed to “I believe” on a license plate. Boooo! The Christian boogey man will get ya!
John Doe, quit being an ass. Don’t come to a man’s blog and insult him or his approach to his posts.
I am not a lawyer, but with the whole brouhaha around opening marriage up to same gender partners, I hear all the time about “slippery slopes” when making changes, but it seems to only apply to those causes the “conservatives” oppose.
That would appear to be the case here, for me. If we grant special message status to certain religions, then as you say, we have to open that option to all religions…yet the “conservatives” don’t want that. They just want to have the Christian message come through, an almost de-facto endorsement by the State. So, they claim that opposing the religious license plates somehow isn’t a problem at all, forgetting that this too has to be a slippery slope, as the standard applies here as well.
Robert,
Thanks for the defense.
John, who has remained anonymous for more than a year, is as much of an ass as his comment reveals him to be.
Well, as you know, Doug, I oppose anonymity/pseudonymity in the blogosphere in virtually all circumstances.
However, he offers numerous arguably valid points — I try never to argue the law in the blogosphere — which tend to call into question whether your support for this decision is on the law, or on your reflexively anti-religious ideology.
The plate was an attempt to directly bypass the state’s limitations on endorsing a religion in a government context. An honest person would never have even tried this. It was attempted expecting defeat, for the sake of publicity and winning over easily swayed voters.
Insinuating that this dishonesty is not reason enough to be appalled, rather it must be ‘anti-religious ideology’, is kind of insulting. A lot of thieves will feel bad after getting caught in your house, but the decent people won’t break into your house period.
An honest person would never have tried to directly break the law by offering a state-sponsored religious plate. All it is, is an opportunity to play the victim card to the religious crowd, which translates to a decent portion of votes.
This whole establishment thing has gotten way out of hand.
If the state allows and facilitates causes, beliefs and private institutions to be presented on license plates it shouldn’t discriminate against and exclude religion or God.
Everybody knows that the State (oops Commonwealth) of Virginia doesn’t promote or endorse Lynchburg College or Georgetown and Marymount Universities by allowing their crest to be displayed on license plates. Nor does Virginia endorse or adopt the standards, values and practices of the various fraternities and sororities whose affiliation is authorized to appear.
The Freemasons and the Knights of Columbus are allowed but apparently not a belief in the almighty that is a central tenet of each society.
You can express your allegiance to Jimmy Buffett or the Redskins but not God?
Let’s put an end to this groundless, disparate treatment of religion.
It doesn’t matter whether people acknowledge it or not this country was founded on religious freedom. Seperation of church and state was originally from goverment supported religions. You were jailed in Colonial if you believed other than the religion the goverment supported. This is taking away people’s religious freedoms. The state of South Carolina is making money from these plates. If the athesists don’t like it let them move to a pagen country.
Good work, judge.
Unfortunately, the same system just rejected the latest attempt to strike “In God We Trust” from the currency.