As described here.
The very last line of the story pisses me off. The plate’s sponsor doesn’t believe other groups should have the right to express their preference! So, um, why should he?
It sounds like “special rights” to me!
I’ve got it! Or at least the Google ads have got it. YOU’RE HILLARY CLINTON!
" Bullard, the plate’s sponsor, isn’t sure all groups should be able to express their preference. If atheists came up with an “I Don’t Believe” plate, for example, he would probably oppose it."
Because it’s still OK to treat atheists like 2nd class citizens, right? It’s OK for a Christian group to promote their faith, but not OK for anyone to say they do not believe? Bullard is a bigot.
Ok, I laughed out loud at that last line. Coupled with the Roman Catholic chick who opposes it because of the “slippery slope” it creates that will lead to the Star of David and Torah that she “doesn’t want to see” was also quite entertaining. These people really do have some balls of steel, don’t they?
This weekend I saw a “god bless Texas” license plate. This is a sentiment that bothers me on more than one level. When Texdot creates a “godamned Texas” plate then I might consider it.
Florida already has a Choose Life plate, decked out with cute little kid handprints.
I believe our former Governor Jeb Bush okayed that one.
It is as if license plates have become some sort of public debate, except not all sides are represented.
I don’t like any of these plates, but there has to be a finite number of plates. You can’t have all sides represented on everything, or you would have 17 million different varieties of plates and some guy suing because his “Jerk Off Every Morning!” plate isn’t offered.
I mean, since Florida has a plate promoting the manatee, are they legally required to have a “Fuck the Manatee, Kill Them All” plate?
I want a license plate that says “Cthulhu fhtagn.”
I don’t get you Americans. Why should a license plate have *anything * on it except for the vehicle’s license number?
It seems to be:
“I’m making a personal statement about my personal life, and DAMMIT, I WANT EVERYONE TO SEE”
Ah, Alessan. So tragically naive.
How about “Florida: Home of Governmentally-Approved Religious Speech.”
Or even “Florida: First Amendment-free since 2008.”
Here in Indiana, all but one of the many kinds of specialty plates give part of the extra fees to some organization or other. That one is the “In God We Trust” plate. The first round of lawsuits resulted in the extra fee being set at the actual cost of making the special plate. Very small fee, IIRC. I’m still not happy with it. It excludes many citizens of other beliefs. Some varieties of Judaism object to spelling out the name of God. Several religions have plural gods. Some faiths take that “no graven images” bit very seriously. Some Hoosiers still worship Bobby Knight. Some folks believe in God, but don’t particularly trust him.
The proposed Florida plate is much worse. The cross points out a particular deity, thus establishing Christianity as the one approved religion of Florida. It’s clearly unconstitutional, because of the hard connection between church and state.
I’m not sure about that. So does the fact that Florida has “Support Teachers” plates mean that teaching is the only “approved” profession in the whole state?
It’s complicated. First of all, we are 50 different state glued into one nation, and car plates are one of the things each state gets to do on its own.
Besides the joy of promoting one’s own state on the plate, some states use the themed plate scheme as a way of wafting more money into the state’s coffers. For example, if you get a plate boosting your favorite university, it costs fifty dollars. Twenty-five of that goes to the university, and almost all of the rest is voluntary tax. Pretty clever, eh?
I admit it’s silly. Of course, it would be much sillier if our whole nation were the size of Florida.
The guy around the corner has an “In God We Trust” plate, mounted inside a chrome-plated frame that apparently shows skulls and femurs. The part you can see past the chrome bones says, “In God We rust.”
Our constitution says nothing prohibiting making laws to support the establishment of education or educators, so there’s a big difference. Perhaps Florida could even constitutionally have “Support Teachers with degrees from Florida State University.”
Because the state lawmakers want to fund things they can’t find room in the budget for. Florida has rather low taxes, and (like all states) is chronically short of cash. If someone in the legislature wants to help some cause or organization, it’s politically much easier to do it this way than to try to get it funded with tax money. Of course, it’s a double-edged sword.
Here’s a site that lists all the Florida specialty plates and tells what they do with the revenues from them:
I’d argue more that they are balls of unrefined iron ore.
The Constitution doesn’t forbid the endorsement of a particular profession.
How about ‘Florida, closer to Heaven.’?