Federal Judge Rules 'Pro-Life' Plate Unconstitutional - Good Ruling?

Story.

So because the North Carolina legislature allowed pro-life specialty license plates (some of the money of which goes to support “Carolina Pregnancy Care Fellowship”), and didn’t allow Planned Parenthood, or other pro-choice plates, the judge found a first amendment reason for striking down the pro-life plates.

[del]I love killing fetuses as much as the next liberal[/del] I think abortion should be safe, legal, and rare, like a good liberal, so I should be applauding this decision, but I don’t understand it.

The tit-for-tatness of it I get, but is that really protected by the first amendment? And the couple of news stories I’ve found made it clear - it’s freedom of expression, not any sort of separation of church and state issue.

Should the judge have ruled as he did, or differently? Will an appeal reverse this decision?

If it gets rid of these type of “message plates” entirely then I’ll be pleased. I know it raises money, but I don’t like bumper stickers even when they’re shaped like license plates.

But yeah, the basic premise is that if you allow political speech you have to allow the opposite speech. It wasn’t the pro-life plate, but the banning of the PP one that got them in trouble, I reckon. Note that the legislature specifically rejected amendments that would have authorized a “Respect Choice” plate.

I like the ruling.

Not only is the plate giving people of the state to express their pro-life stance vs. the kill-the-baby crowd, but the plate itself is offensive, Where is the white child? Is the NC legislature saying that only black/brown and yellow/asian children need to be saved from the biohazard waste basket (white people are obviously pro-life and are buying the plate and the car to stick it on! They don’t need other white people looking at that plate and have any bad thoughts about white children being aborted). And the other thing is that no one in NC would want to see their white girls next to a black boy. So they color the girl yellow and give her black hair to make her asian. That plate is so racist!

Ok, most of that was meant as a joke. The real reason was as simple as the other side’s plate was shot down, simple as that. The pro choice people got their panties in a bunch and sued.

Personally, i think there is something to be said for the separation of church and state, though. Putting hot button political/religious slogans and stances on a state license plate is a bad idea.

When, for instance, would NAMBLA get its plate?

Either both sides should be allowed, or neither. So if the pro-choice side can’t have one, the anti-choice side shouldn’t be allowed to.

I get that. In a common sense way, sure. But finding the ‘if one side can, then so should the other’ guiding principle in the first amendment? I guess I follow Jas09’s explanation - you can restrict method of expression, but not content. With political speech it’s pretty obvious that you’re curtailing people on one side of the issue.

So, does an ‘adoption’ plate mean that a group all for infanticide should get a plate?

Not necessarily. I think an organization promoting child kidnapping would also offer an alternative to adoption.

I’m curious what the Carolina Pregnancy Care Fellowship is. Googling wasn’t much help.

We also have “Choose Life” plates in Alabama.
http://www.ador.state.al.us/motorvehicle/chooselife.htm

You also have the choice between the standard plate or a “God Bless America” plate for no extra charge when you get a new one.
http://www.ador.state.al.us/motorvehicle/gba.htm

Strangely, there are no options for atheists or pro-choice supporters. :wink:

Well, its more like “if one side, then the other should have the opportunity to do so.” Presumably if no pro-choice groups had tried to get a plate, there wouldn’t be a problem. But the longer article says pro-choice groups had tried several times to do so, and that the legislation allowing the plates had even gone so far as specifically forbidding groups that supported abortion from participating.

Usually in cases like this, the idea is that the gov’t is creating a forum for speech for private groups by creating the license plate program. And in providing a forum, the first amendment forbids the gov’t from picking and choosing who gets to use the forum based on the content of their speech.

Basically, its the same idea as if the mayors office only let pro-life groups protest in a public park, and denied pro-choice groups permits to do so when they were requested.

If a pro-infanticide group wants one, probably. The KKK used basically the same arguments to force states to allow them to participate in “adopt-a-highway” programs, so the fact that the majority of the population finds a particular group reprehensible doesn’t allow the gov’t to discriminate against their speech when providing a forum.

But note the Courts have allowed states to discriminate based on things that don’t have to do with the content of the speech. S. Carolina avoided having to allow a pro-choice plate by requiring groups show that there’s enough interest in a plate amongst drivers by coming up with 4,000 pre-orders beforehand. In deep-red S. Carolina, that was a much tougher job for pro-choice groups then pro-life ones, and so only pro-life plates made the cut.

This wouldn’t work in N. Carolina, where Planned Parenthood is probably popular enough to round up a couple thousand pre-orders. But in the unlikely event that pro-infanticide groups or NAMBLA or whatever want a plate, they could probably be blocked by a similar measure. I doubt they’d find thousands of people willing to pre-order a NAMBLA plate.

I get where you are coming from, but it seems as if under that theory, the government would have to allow a citizen to put absolutely anything he wants on a license plate. Hey, why can that guy say he’s pro-choice, but I can’t say the speed limit should be raised to 75mph. Isn’t the state preferring his speech over mine?

Nope, see my other post. The state can put limitations on what gets said, so long as those limitations are content neutral. As a practical matter, the state isn’t going to print out license plates for every conceivable issue, just ones for which there is significant interest. So they can say that for a group to get a license plate, they need to pay X$ dollars and get Y pre-orders ahead of time. That limits what causes will end up getting plates, but does so in a way that doesn’t distinguishing between different types of causes.

If you start a group for raising the speed limit, and that group has the organization and cash to navigate whatever process the state has put up to get a license plate. But realistically, most of the more silly causes aren’t going to do that.

Conversely, note too that there are limits to what the state can require you to put on your license plate. New Hampshire used to put “Live Free or Die” on all of its plates, until some citizen who’d apparently found a third alternative sued for an injunction and took the case all the way to the Supreme Court. The Court ruled for the citizen, finding that the state could not require him to display its message on his plate.

While we’re at it, I personally dislike any state’s plate that puts its state website on it. Really, what rube isn’t capable of googling that particular state’s promotional website? Do people really look at an out-of-state plate while on the highway, and pull out a pen and write it down saying to themselves, “Yeah I want to visit Pennsylvania, I need that URL to find out what touristy things they offer”. Of course not.

As for the pro-life plate, if a motto in question is one that typically divides a population, then the state should either offer both or neither, assuming there’s enough interest for both. Can you imagine a state where they allowed “Vote Republican” on a plate but denied issuing plates saying “Vote Democratic”?

It sounds like an appropriate ruling to me. You basically have some form of government sanctioned speech by allowing some things on plates and not others. It’s not just a matter of pro-choice vs. pro-life and letting both get special plates, but all the people interested in having specialty plates. If we’re going to allow both major opinions on that, we have to also allow others as well, and that becomes unmanagable.

Personally, I think those specialized plates just shouldn’t be done. If you want to donate money to a cause, why add the government as a middleman? Just give the money directly to the cause. If you want the person driving behind you to know your opinion on something, that’s what bumper stickers are for, as much as I hate those. And that counts for whether you want to tell them you’re an alumnus of some random university or that you’re against animal cruelty or whatever. I can only guess the whole point they’ve come up is enough want to express something, just not enough to ruin their bumper for it. Just stop trying to be clever with license plates.