Luminous
A Catholic Woman and Her Thoughts on Life, the Universe, and Everything
Thursday, March 23, 2006
We Are Actually Allowed to Talk About Life!
Go figure! A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati ruled just ruled that the pro-life license plates issued by the state of Tennessee were allowed under the Constitution, and the ACLU could go take a flying leap, and the state did NOT have to allow pro-death speech, if it didn't want to have it plastered all over it's cars.

"Pro-life speech is not second class speech," said Gary McCaleb, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, which backed the state in the case. "The Tennessee Legislature has the constitutional right to offer a license plate with a pro-life point of view if it chooses to do so, regardless of what it decides regarding other specialty plates."

Of course, you know the ACLU is going to appeal this, so it will end up in the Supreme Court.

The 6th Circuit panel said in its opinion that with respect to the Constitution, the fact that the "Choose Life" message is considered by some to be more controversial than other messages is irrelevant.

"Such a distinction ... is entirely indefensible as a matter of First Amendment law. … In the absence of a tenable distinction, invalidating the Act in this case would effectively invalidate not only all those government specialty license plate provisions that involve a message that anyone might disagree with, but also effectively invalidate all manner of other long-accepted practices in the form of government-crafted messages disseminated by private volunteers. We are not provided with a sound legal basis for making such a leap."

Mathew D. Staver, Liberty Counsel's president and general counsel, said the appeals court decision in the Tennessee case "averted the hijacking" of the specialty plate.

"Had the ACLU been successful in striking down the 'Choose Life' license plate, the result would have meant that government is never permitted to express its own message or promote valuable social policies," he said. "Every warning against smoking would be followed by a message endorsing cigarettes. The result would be absurd. The state of Tennessee's choice to promote life over abortion is not only wise social policy – it is in complete harmony with the First Amendment."

If you want to see the Choose Life plates, or see if you can get them in your state, or help support the movement to get them in your state - click here: http://www.choose-life.org/index.htm


Written at 3:41 AM by Luminaria2112.
0 comments