US District Court to SC: Don't Be Stupid

In case you missed this news:

A federal judge says South Carolina must stop marketing and making licenses plates that feature the image of a cross and the words "I Believe." A federal judge issued a temporary injunction during a court hearing Thursday after opponents said the plates violate the separation of church and state. U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie said the case needs to be heard in court. In the meantime, the judge said the Department of Motor Vehicles cannot take any more orders for the plates.

Back in June, South Carolina made the extraordinarily dumb move to fast track a Christian license plate through legislation. Big shock: unanimous vote in an election year. Soon after, Lt. Gov. André Bauer jumped on board and pledged to fund the down payment on the plates. Before you could say "separation of church and state," South Carolina was sued over the plates. Now the issue has moved to the courts where it will hopefully be quickly squashed. Anyone who understands the complete lack of constitutional support and court precedent (Lemon Test, anyone?) on this issue knows it would be more productive to pick your nose than ponder which side has the better case here.

The real issue here is with all that's going on in the world, this is how our elected leaders choose to spend their time and our dollars. It's absurd. But you don't have to take my word for it. Here's a collection of info and opinions I collected this morning...

The Legislature has not adopted a similar plate for any other faith group, let alone for those who choose not to follow any faith. Does anyone really think that the Legislature is likely to adopt a special plate for Islam, Scientology or Wicca? After approval of the “Christian” plate, some legislators flatly stated that they would not.

As state representatives, legislators are supposed to represent all the people in the state, including religious minorities. James Madison once indicated that government needs “to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority.”

Our Constitution does not allow government to favor one faith group over others. The First Amendment requires the government to make “no law respecting an establishment of religion.” The South Carolina General Assembly has already encouraged the posting of the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer in public buildings. This license plate just further suggests (and wrongly so) that Christianity is the official state religion.

Court Should Reject "I Believe" Plates (Free Times)

And so the forecasted expensive legal battle begins, and it’s just where our increasingly scarce money should be going: Frivolous lawsuits.

Dear legislature: Please drop the program before we have to waste any more taxpayer money on an ideological crusade that we seem bound to lose, or be forced to expensively widen to all faiths.

Judge halts Christian license plate program (TheDigitel)

In her ruling, the judge said the balance of harm tips decidedly in favor of the plaintiffs, and granted a motion for injunction, ordering the DMV to immediately stop advertising and marketing the license plates, refraining from distributing them and notifying the 400 people who already ordered them of the ruling.

Following the hearing, the DMV’s attorney said they “obviously disagree with the courts.”

The plaintiffs, however, were delighted.

“I think we had the better claim,” said Khan, and if the DMV wants to save the taxpayers money they probably should not appeal the decision. If there is an appeal, Khan said they will litigate it as far as they can go.

“We have a much better case against them,” she said.

Court Blocks "I Believe" Plates (Free Times)

I don’t know if McMaster ate a little too much of the Jesus pudding while visiting Bob Jones University yesterday or if he’s just pandering to the religious right, but this has absolutely nothing to do with religion.

I’m all about Christianity. I’m all about expressing it. But I’m not all about having more than 100 of these hideous, pointless, state-issued specialty tags.

If you want everyone to know you believe in Jesus or Allah or Xenu, then be my friggin’ guest. But do it on a bumper sticker and quit distracting the single-minded paper-pushers over at the Department of Motor Vehicles away from their much-needed three-hour lunch break.

A victory for license plate minimalists (The Palmetto Scoop)

Palmetto Republicans running for governor in 2012 will continue to get on their soapboxes until state budget cuts take them away. Currently, the loudest prognosticator of doom is Attorney General Henry McMaster. Since catching criminals isn’t enough, the AG wants to catch the attention of Christian voters. In a surprising spasm of elephantitis, the would-be governor is claiming faux outrage because the ‘I Believe’ license plate violates the separation between church and state. You would think that a lawyer, especially the attorney general of an entire state, would be able to figure that out ahead of time.

'I Believe' You Need To Stay In Your Lane (Indigo Journal)

Seriously, guys. 1998 called. It wants its “pander manual” back.

Look, as much as we appreciate (and in fact subscribe) to the sentiment espoused by these plates, the fact is our lawmakers showed extremely poor judgment in passing this bill, and Sanford showed extremely poor judgment in allowing it to become law.

This isn’t a case South Carolina is going to win, and wasting money on an appeal is pissing money we don’t have down the drain.

Judge Smacks Down "I Believe" Plates (FITS News, with a very familiar piece of art at the top)

And it would be remiss of me to ignore the other side of this argument. I may think Rep. Jeff Duncan is dead wrong on this issue, but at least he puts his thoughts out there instead of hiding behind obvious political pandering.

So I return to the basic question in this post: What is UnConstitutional about the State of South Carolina producing a license plate which its citizens can freely purchase or not purchase? You could argue, I guess, that the highways are built and maintained with Federal Highway Funds. But those funds stem from gasoline tax, collected here in the State, sent to Washington where a portion is siphoned off, and returned to our State. It was our money to begin with, eh?

The right of South Carolina to offer to it's citizens an "I Believe" tag is no different than the state of Washington allowing a non-religious symbol to be placed next to a Christian symbol inside the capital building. Is that UnConstitutional as well? We are off kilter in this country and we need to make some changes.

What is UnConstitutional about it? (Walk-On Legislator)