In a brilliant decision this past Thursday, U.S. District Judge, Cameron McGowan Currie, ordered that the state of South Carolina stop making and selling their “I Believe” license plates. As shown here, the plate sends out a very clear Christian message and leads one to believe that the state is promoting Christianity.
Judge Currie put the issue of the plates through what has been dubbed the “lemon test,” a test established by the Supreme Court to determine if something violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. The test has three components to it that add up to ensure the separation of church and state. She determined that “based on the record now before the court, the court finds it unlikely that the I Believe Act satisfies even one of these three requirements. As the act must satisfy all three requirements to survive constitutional scrutiny, the court concludes that plaintiffs have made a strong showing of likelihood of success.”
Interestingly, the plaintiffs in this case were not a bunch of raging atheists as some might have supposed. They were religiously affiliated individuals and groups, including Rev. Dr. Robert M. Knight, Rabbi Sanford T. Marcus, Rev. Dr. Neal Jones, Rev. Dr. Thomas A Summers, Hindu American Foundation, and American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. The case was brought before the court with the sponsorship of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.
As this is a preliminary injunction, it will be interesting to see where this goes. Currie is said to be releasing her written opinion tomorrow.
Comments
First of all - I admire the courage of Examiner.com and the author. I did read this, and all of your posts with fascination. I am a Jew, I do believe in G-d, however I am appalled by the inability of people in this country to disagree respectfully.
If you continue writing, I will continue reading. I will disagree at times and I am sure that you will disagree with me at times. I look forward to these disagreements.
Howard Flomberg,
The Workplace Examiner
I've been a long time fan of your work. I'm grateful the something was done about this issue, but I think a better option would have been to offer other religious plates, or plates that have no religion. Making this type of plate mandatory is just appaling. Keep up the good work
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