“I Believe” SC license plate shot down

In a sudden outbreak of common sense, a District Court judge has ruled that the law authorizing a proposed “I Believe” license plate, which South Carolina’s moron Lieutenant Governor Andre has been pushing, is indeed an unconstitutional state endorsement of a religion.

I Don't Believe So!

As the judge in the case noted,

“Despite such clearly established law, this state’s limited resources have been used to promote, pass, and defend a state law, the ‘I Believe’ Act, which authorizes the Department of Motor Vehicles to issue a license plate which must contain ‘the words “I Believe” and a cross superimposed on a stained glass window,’ ” Currie wrote in her summary judgment. 

 What makes the whole thing even stupider is that the identical plate could have been introduced as a private organization’s specialty plate, without having to bring in special legislation exposing the state to a very expensive lawsuit.

In fact, South Carolina already has a very popular specialty plate on a similar theme (“In God We Trust”) which is available to anyone who wants it for an extra 24 dollars every two years:

But We Still Have To Buy Insurance

If you care to join the Secular Humanists Of The Low Country you can get the “In Reason We Trust” plate, though that costs $30 more:

A More Reasonable Belief

It’s perfectly okay to express a philosophic viewpoint on a license plate; it’s just not okay to have the additional costs paid for by the state government, because that’s an endorsement of a specific religion. That of course is what the real motive of SC’s backward legislature was. They’ve never liked that whole separation  of church and state notion; they want a Christian theocracy.

~ by B.T. Murtagh on November 11, 2009.