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| | Issue #21.27 :: 07/02/2008 - 07/08/2008 | License Plate Lawsuit Elicits Hate Mongering
Letter Writer Advises Plaintiff to "Go to Hell"
| BY ERIC K. WARD
| By Nick McCormac
The General Assembly passed a flurry of religious-themed bills toward the end of the recently concluded legislative session. One of the more controversial bills legalized license plates featuring a cross in front of a stained glass window next to the words “I Believe.”
While arguments put forth by supporters and opponents of the bill have received media coverage, one issue that hasn’t garnered a lot of attention is harassment opponents of the bill have faced recently.
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| The Rev. Neal Jones, minister of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Columbia, is a plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging state-sanctioned Christian license plates. Photo by Jonathan Sharpe |
Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a nonsectarian, nonpartisan organization based in Washington, D.C., filed a federal lawsuit against South Carolina challenging the legality of the plates.
A post on the group’s web site outlines the premise of the lawsuit.
“In America, all faiths enjoy the same privileges; the government may not show preference to one religion over all others,” the post says. It goes on to say that by producing and distributing these plates, “the state government of South Carolina has violated the Constitution.”
The post also mentions a barrage of hate mail the group has received since the lawsuit was filed, including letters saying “go to hell” and accusing the group’s director of being the antichrist.
The Rev. Neal Jones, minister of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Columbia, is a plaintiff in the lawsuit. His disagreement with the plates boils down to the most basic level.
“I believe very strongly in the separation between church and state,” Jones says. “This is a blatant violation of the First Amendment.”
Although Jones has not faced direct criticism, he says he understands why people would speak out against Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
What he finds puzzling, Jones says, is why people have been so defensive. “It makes me wonder why some Christians would want to depend on the government to support or prop up their faith,” he says. “How secure are they that they need the government to use symbols like this?”
Jones and other opponents of the plates say they are not looking to silence the voices of Christians in South Carolina. Rather, they contend that the government should stay neutral because by pushing an issue like this, it seems like religious bullying.
The opponents also see the issue as little more than political grandstanding by Lt. Gov. André Bauer, who pushed the bill in the Legislature and has offered $4,000 of his own money to see the plates materialize.
“My impression is that there’s a lot of posturing in election years and Bauer’s doing this to gain attention,” says Columbia resident Holli Emore, director of the pagan Cherry Hill Seminary.
In a statement from his office, Bauer says the state has a process for religious-affiliated and secular groups to apply for specialty license plates. “For those who say this [I Believe plate] violates the Constitution by giving preference to Christianity, I think this lawsuit clearly discriminates against persons of faith,” Bauer says in the statement.
Graham Boyd, interim director of the American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina, says the state ACLU is not involved in the lawsuit but is monitoring the case. “It’s certainly an issue that we’re paying attention to, and if there’s any request for assistance we would be very open to helping them,” Boyd says.
Says Emore, “We don’t want to see the religious liberties of anyone in any faith infringed upon. We just want to live and let live.” | |
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