You don't have to drive long in South Carolina before you see a bevy of bumper stickers with an overarching Christian theme. Some I've witnessed recently include: "Pro-life and Christian," "American needs a faith lift," "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven," and the usual flood of Jesus fish. It's rare to find one of those "Darwin fish" eating the Jesus fish, or even rarer to find a bumper sticker proclaiming atheism.
One form of Christian expression we won't see on the back of cars and trucks here is a specialty license plate that proclaimed "I Believe" with stained glass and a cross on it. That license plate was authorized for production last year by the South Carolina state legislature — but none have been distributed. A group of progressive pastors including Rev. Dr. Neal Jones of Columbia's Unitarian church challenged the legality of the tag in court.
Last week, a federal judge proclaimed that the tag was unconstitutional:
"The 'I Believe' Act's primary effect is to promote a specific religion, Christianity," U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie wrote in a decision released Tuesday.
State laws promoting one religion over others have been illegal in the United States since the nation's founding, Currie wrote.
That law hasn't stopped South Carolina from approving and promoting the tag. The idea for the tag came from Lt. Governor Andre Bauer, who has his eye on the governor's mansion now that Gov. Sanford's hiking trip in Argentina has made the state a national laughingstock. Bauer was quick to brand the judge as a "liberal judge appointed by (President) Bill Clinton," who has it in for Christians.
Bauer said the ruling represented "another attack on Christianity" and that Currie "was using her personal wishes to overrule the Legislature and the will of the thousands of South Carolinians who want to purchase the tags."
The real shame, pointed out by Judge Currie, is that while the state of South Carolina faces unemployment approaching 12 percent, legislators who vote against helping the unemployed, a financially strapped education system, and dwindling state budget, leaders have chosen to spend money fighting for an obviously illegal license plate to gain support of the right wing political base in the state:
"Whether motivated by sincerely held Christian beliefs or an effort to purchase political capital with religious coin, the result is the same," she wrote. "The statute is clearly unconstitutional and defense of its implementation has embroiled the state in unnecessary (and expensive) litigation."
Rev. Jones echoed that sentiment:
Jones said Bauer's attempt to promote one religion was part of a long tradition of state officials spending taxpayers' money on lawsuits that try to do unconstitutional things like upholding racial segregation and keeping women out of the now-coed Citadel."It's really sad," said Jones, pastor of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Columbia. "I don't know how much taxpayers' money has been spent on this case at a time when our state is seeing deficits and making budget cuts."
But, right wing politicians, whether in South Carolina or elsewhere, see money as no object when they need to pander to their base. Bauer, continuing in pander mode, bemoaned the decision calling it discrimination against Christians:
"When you can express yourself as a non-Christian, and not as a Christian, there's a real disconnect," Bauer said.
The truth is, as long as cars have bumpers, both Christians and non-Christians alike have all the rights they need to express themselves. They don't need a state sanctioned license plate, too
Tags: christian, license plate, south carolina
First the sanford is HYPOCRITICALLY claiming moral superiority through right-wing "Family Values"--till he got caught bumpin' in Argentina on the tax-payers dimes, and now, the lt. gov proves he does NOT understand that in America, we FULLY respect, and honor, EVERY religion, along with those who are not religious--we respect diversity since we are a nation of immigrants which is WHY we are a nation of laws, and specifically NOT religion.
This IS the missing link in the republican party--it is THE reason the parties are at such odds, and will simply never agree. It is the republican conservative righties who insist on pushing their UN-American fake value system of religion into our politics.
Our country will never operate quite the way it should, and definately could, until religion is BANNED from our political process.
This wise judge's ruling is a start. Congress needs to be next, and specifically gopers. They are the biggest waste of tax-payer dollars in America and this case is proof of that. While sanford is refusing Stimulous money for his state due to conservative "values", he's planning his next "trip". DISgusting hypocrite.
Let's just apply law, and leave religion to individuals to do with what they will.
I know a few SC people , they are very sweet, but I can just imagine how horrified they would have been to be see ""Allah Akbar!"" license plate.
Because that is, at least theoretically, entirely possible. If one religion is allowed to promote itself on a license plates, then all are. USA is a country of religious freedom, remember? ;)
So don't whine, dear people. How about - thats a radical idea!- promote your christianity by acting like Christ.Sure, it's pricier then buying a vanity plate. Well, Jesus warned you it would be.
Re the quotation: "'When you can express yourself as a non-Christian, and not as a Christian, there's a real disconnect,' Bauer said."
The only "disconnect" here is between Bauer and the truth. This is NOT about "expression" at all. Christians, and anyone else, remain as free as they ever have been to "express their Christianity" to their hearts' content. They can paper over their cars with Christian bumper stickers, if they want. They were free to do that before, and they're still free to do that.
This is, instead, about the state of SC stamping religious messages into license plates it issues. That's all. Bauer lies when he says anything else.
It's time for Christians like Bauer to grow up -- for the first time in their lives, in many cases -- and stop lying for Jesus just 'cause they feel entitled to.
It's also time for other Christians ... i.e. the kind who don't lie for Jesus ... to stop tolerating those who do. Silence and acquiescence are the equivalent of approval. This is juvenile behavior that has to be confronted if it's to be stopped -- but that will never happen, so long as no one steps forward and makes an effort to confront it.
You make a great point, PsiCop. The way to make progress is for other Christians to confront their brothers. But on what issue is also important. If the confrontation is on this and every other issue, then you end up with people of every different opinion on every different issue, and nothing gets accomplished. I think they should focus on one issue, the clearest and most important one in America today, and once that issue is cleared up they will have a way to deal with some of the others. The issue is the American doctrine of the necessity of the world being destroyed, hopefully in our lifetime, and everyone else needing to suffer. This issue leads them to start wars, and sometimes encourage others to do the same. This issue made Christians the most supporting segment of our society for Bush's torture. This issue leads Christians to be blind to environmental issues. The issue is driven by rapture books and Hagee's Christian Zionism. This is a problem primarily of American Christianity, the rest of Christendom doesn't suffer from the same level of insanity. This is the issue that those other Christians should confront them on. If they can't fix this, then they can't fix anything.
I disagree that confrontation on any and all points will not work. It sounds reasonable, but it's essentially a rationale for inaction. It's also premised on the "magic bullet fallacy" which says that the solution to any problem can only be one small thing, and that no other solutions are permissible ... even at the risk of doing nothing in the case of that single "magic bullet" never being found.
I understand that conflict with one's religious brothers is neither easy nor convenient, but it has to happen, if the religion in question is to have any integrity and meaning.
The truth is this: If you restrict your dissent to only one topic and ignore all else, you are in essence handing them a "pass" to lie about all those other things. That only fuels their belief that they're entitled to lie, because you've refused to call them on their lies when they state them. If you only critique them on one small matter, you are basically telling them you approve of everything else.
That's not a message they ought to be getting. They need to be opposed ... uniformly, on all fronts, and in all matters. Only consistent, persistent, unrelenting critique will send them the message that they're wrong. (They may not like that message, and they may not actually bother to listen to it, but at least they won't be able to miss it; they will know without doubt that they have opponents and that they are not free to say and do what they wish without it being noticed and criticized.) At the same time, it will send the same unmitigated message to those not directly involved ... in this case to non-Christians.
As for this being solely a problem in the US, I disagree. Malicious religious dogma -- to the point of assuming an entitlement to lie -- spans the globe; and it spans not only all religions, but all religious traditions as well.
If you attack all the malicious dogmas in all the religions in all the countries in all the world, the malicious religions will be happy because it will be hard to accomplish anything. We are Americans, so we should concentrate on America. If we can solve America's religion problem, then perhaps other countries and peoples will be inspired to work on their own problems. I think the only easy way to do the job is to knock a crack in the cornerstone. Then you can sit back and watch what happens. They would love to debate a wide range of issues because on many of those issues the debate won't make much difference, and that is where they would like to direct things. I think rapture is the key issue, the one they don't want to handle. What happens if they refuse to change on this issue or even talk about it? What happens if they do change on this issue? Just think about where that crack leads.
The religion needs no integrity or meaning. It only needs believers.
As an atheist I continue to be appalled at the requirement that the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance contain the words "under God" and that the U.S. Motto had to be changed from "E Pluribus Unum" ("From Many, One") to "In God We Trust" ("From One, Many").
However, as the U.S. Supreme Court continues to uphold these violations of the First Amendment as somehow "secular", it occurs to me that a very simple solution exists for the South Carolina legislature: a license plate stating, simply, "I Believe", without any religious symbolism.
In our country where "under [the obviously monotheistic] God" and "In [the obviously monotheistic] God" are phrases which the U.S. Supreme Court tells us mean (somehow) "under God/Goddesses/Pantheons/No-God-At-All" and "In God/Goddesses/Pantheons/No-God-At-All," "I Believe" license plates would probably be upheld as not an attack on atheists while also not promoting any one religion over another.
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