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DISTRICT JUDGE SAYS CHRISTIAN LICENSE PLATES VIOLATE 1ST AMENDMENT
You can call it an activist judge making an unfortunate ruling or a victory for First Amendment rights, but U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie Tuesday said South Carolina’s “I Believe” license tag was Unconstitutional.
The federal ruling came after months of arguing over the Christian tags, which feature a cross over a tainted-glass window on a cloudy background with the words “I Believe” written above the license plate number.
The tags were passed by the General Assembly in 2008, but a number of groups including Americans United for Separation of Church and State and American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee sued, saying they were a violation of the First Amendment.
Currie said the amendment enshrines a separation of church and state and that the tag violates that right.
Lt Gov. Andre Bauer, who helped get the tags passed in the State Senate, called it a “freedom of speech issue” and noted the absurd number of tags (more than 100) already available in South Carolina.
But Currie disagreed, even taking a shot at Bauer.
“Whether motivated by sincerely-held Christian beliefs or an effort to purchase political capital with religious coin, the result is the same,” Currie said. “The statute is clearly unconstitutional and defense of its implementation has embroiled the state in unnecessary (and expensive) litigation.”
The ruling, however, will likely be appealed to Fourth District Court of Appeals.
Bauer is a political opportunist of the rankest kind. There is no depth of the political sewer he will not troll to catch easy righting votes.
So conservatives are okay with the state wasting money to print a plate to espouse a religious belief, just so the rest of us can know that you’re a God fearing Christian when you cut us off in traffic?
Interesting.
Plenty of room on the back of a vehicle to proclaim religious preference other than on a state lic. plate.
Bauer is wrong and the license plate should not be implemented. What no one is looking at is where do you stop? Satanist, Neo-Nazis, Agnostics, Wiccans, etc. all could claim the same right and we would have more ridiculous plates than what is needed. I can see the state having military veteran plates, disabled plates, and a plate promoting the state but we don’t need a plate for all occasions. All this is the state attempting to make money on this, South Carolina is not Walmart.
The one thing “I Believe” is this argument should be dead in the water and worry about high unemployment, education, and health care.
[...] video was released just two days after U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie ruled that South Carolina’s “I Believe” license tag was Unconstitutional. Currie said the amendment [...]
Debate over subjects like this is half the problem with our country now. You cannot desensitize the country of all faith and beliefs. Yes, the cross is a Christian symbol and also seen as a symbol for other religions in the world. If we took the cross off the tag do you think they would not still argue the ” I Believe” across it. All humans believe in something, whether it be a person or any item. America is here for all and whom or what they BELIEVE in, therefore this should not even be a debate!!