States can and do sanction breast cancer lobbies, manatee lobbies, historical/bogotry lobbies, pet neutering lobbies.... but they cannot sanction a declaration of faith to be displayed on a personal license plate.

Nobody is standing up for First Amendment rights here. Rather, there is a wrongly perceived and very wrongly understood "separation clause" in play. In no way does a license plate inscription "create a law with respect to an establishment of religion."

Faith based initiatives wherein social groups, churches and the like provide social programs that would otherwise cost taxpayers more and more. That is ok.

The currency we use legally requires "In God We Trust" and that is ok.

The state legislatures, county commissions and city councils begin with a prayer - and that is ok.

The government charges me an annual fee/tax/extortion on assessed value of real estate or personal property - called ad valorem taxes. In the case of my personal vehicle I get a tag to prove I was sufficiently extorted.

That tag, at the least, should bear whatever symbols or words I choose.

After all, personalized license plates are big business... a part of the free market. Isn't that ok, too?

Very well written Mr. Stanley. You are correct that since we pay taxes on our tags then we should be allowed to have whatever we wish on it including something to do with our faith if we wish to do so.
That should be a given right guaranteed by the First Amendment. But as usual our rights are being limited in subtle ways that some may not even notice. There are signs around that say don't do this or don't do that. These are subtle limitations on our given rights. Our rights are constantly being challenged and the people need to understand if we lose these rights we are a nation no more.
The Doctor

Nobody is standing up for First Amendment rights here. Rather, there is a wrongly perceived and very wrongly understood "separation clause" in play. In no way does a license plate inscription "create a law with respect to an establishment of religion."

With respect, Larry...yes, it does. Unless they are also going to create licenses plates with the Star of David or a crescent moon, then the state shouldn't put the cross on the plates either.

After all, personalized license plates are big business... a part of the free market. Isn't that ok, too?

The government isn't part of the market. Unless you're privatizing the DMV, then government has absolutely no place promoting religion.

I pay the tax, I drive the car, I can promote whatever I like. The fact the tag is only evidence that taxes were extorted from me, the government is not "supporting" anything except a tyranical rule.

A personalized car tag provided for ANY promotion, then should not be allowed.

So my religion includes saving manatees in Florida, and the state receives some remuneration from my tag tax -- that is ok?

Saying government has absolutely no place promoting religion is not Constitutional - it is only an interpretation that came about in the 1950s ( I think). In fact the Constitution is mute on the subject of "promoting" and specifically deals with "establishment."

Besides, separation of church and state, as some see it, means separation of our belief system from the public square. That was never intended. "Make no law" is stretched to mean "Cannot acknowledge."

Saying government has absolutely no place promoting religion is not Constitutional - it is only an interpretation that came about in the 1950s ( I think).

"I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state." - Thomas Jefferson (1802)

I pay the tax, I drive the car, I can promote whatever I like. The fact the tag is only evidence that taxes were extorted from me, the government is not "supporting" anything except a tyranical rule.

There is nothing tyrannical about it. You are well within your rights to promote your religious beliefs, however, you cannot do it through the government. A cross on a license plate is explicit in its support of Christianity, therefore establishing government "support" of a particular religion. That is a clear violation of the Establishment clause of the First Amendment.

If you do not like it, work towards the privatization of the DMV and other driver services.

One has to be so careful when using Thomas Jefferson as a means through which he or she defends the mindset of the founders. The separation clause exists in the first amendment to the U.S. Consitution, and was authored as part of an original 12 amendments that were to be the Bill of Rights. Many would not vote to ratify the document unless they were assured such a list of rights existed. James Madison wrote the original 12 and the Congress passed them through before the states settled on just 10 and were made an official part of the Constitution in 1791. Jefferson, who was minister to France when the Constitution was written, mainly influenced the writing through his friend Madison. The establishment, or separation, clause actually was influenced by Jefferson's involvment in the 1786 Virginia Statutes for Religious Freedom. The more modern interpretation of the clause was affected by Jefferson's 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, from where the quote above comes and was penned over a decade after the first amendment was written.
While Jefferson did agree that Congress should never pass laws recognizing religion or allowing religion to be mixed in with the powers of government, he also believed that religion, particularly Christianity, did play a significant role in the development of our nation and was a "friend" to government. He said, "The reason that Christianity is the best friend of Government is because Christianity is the only religion that changes the heart." In addition, he seemed to focus more on God when comtemplating from where our rights come. Remember in the DOI in 1776 he said nature and nature's god. Consider this quote: "The God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever." There are some pretty steep Judeo-Christian ideologies in that statement. But then again, Jefferson was full of contradictions. He was a walking paradox, hard to pin down.
It is really hard to use him on many issues. He wanted us to be a nation of small agrarians, did not truly support manufactoring and industrialism, was a Franco-phile, and stretched the Constitution until it cracked (his words) to buy the Louisiana Territory.
My feelings on the license plate are similar to Justice Thomas' view. The 1st amendment is a restriction on the federal Congress, not the states. License plates are a state thing, not Congressional. We pay for the plate, as well as pay a tax on the car to which it is affixed. Therefore, we should be able to buy it. Besides, here in Georgia, you can buy a Mercer or Emory license plate and both of those are Christian schools!!!

Also, if I am not mistaken, the tag owner pays an additional fee for plates commemorating or promoting something. I know I have a UGA license plate on my car, and there is an extra fee. The county and state are not actually promoting the faith; the owner of the tag is. If we travel this slippery slope, we have to dig deep. Consider this: Many local and state banks offer checks with religious logos, sayings, scriptures, or pictures. All banks are insured by the FDIC, which is government related. Does this mean that by offering those checks to the customer for a fee, checks that are circulated far and wide by the way, that our government is indirectly supporting religion? I know that is very trivial, but the argument COULD be made if we go very far with this.

Very good Professor. It is true that Jefferson is hard to understand in some of his
issues. Very well written.
The Doctor

Professor Wells,

I was not attempting to channel the founders thoughts, merely Jefferson himself to show Larry that Separation was not a creation of 20th century jurisprudence.

I think you would agree that the Bill of Rights, as Chief Justice John Marshall stated in Barron v. Baltimore, did not apply to the states, but they were eventually incorporated with the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment with the First Amendment's Establishment clause specifically being incorporated in Everson v. Board of Education in 1947.

Religion is on of the issues that I disagree with originalists on.

Yeah, its pretty clear that separation is an 18th century ideal, but Larry is still right that the "more modern" interpretation of the separation clause is a 20th century idea. As I pointed out about Jefferson, even he tended to disagree with his earlier thoughts on how religion should be utilized in our governing system, or even the role it should play. I would also disagree with you on the 14th amendment issue. While it appears that the states were incorporated with the amendments to the Constitution at the passage of the 14th amendment, there are a number of cases over the years that have indicated that the Bill of Rights still should only bind the federal branches, not the state branches. Justice Thomas and Justice Scalia have that opinion. However, as my grad school professors always pointed out, the Supreme Court falls in to a catagory that historians often times call "Institutions of Fluid Ideology." What this means is that jurisprudence, at any time really, as set up by our federal system, dispenses fluid decisions. In other words, the interpretation of the Constitution and laws passed under institutions created by the Constitution, are subject to change. The outcome depends on the justices sitting on the bench at that time. One great example of that would be Justice Thomas' current interpretation that the first amendment's establishment clause applies only to the states. His interpretation is quite different in the 21st century than the court's was in the 1880s, when the Supreme Court ruled the Civil Rights Law of 1875 was unconstitutional because the 14th amendment only prevented invasion by the state. We see the court change its interpretation over time on issues like it did in 1954 in the Brown case when it overturned the Plessy ruling.
You said you disagreed with originalists on religion. I would love to hear more about how you disagree with them on that issue. Thanks for the reply.

Correction: What I meant to type was that Justice Thomas believes that the first amendments establishment clause only applies to the Congress, NOT the states. Sorry, should have previewed better.

My problem with the Everson case is that in 1947, the court cited Jefferson's metaphor of the "wall of separation," and as I pointed out earlier, that was from a letter he wrote as president in 1802 to a group of Baptists in Connecticut. This is more Jefferson's interpretation of the first amendment and not part of that idea of original intent. While I look to him as a founding father, he was not part of the writing of that amendment or the Constitution. The court, in my opinion, erred when they cited him.

Jefferson did see value in religion, as far as what it churches did for the community. However, he saw it as immoral to tax in order to prop up any particular religion.

Justice Thomas and Justice Scalia are originalists, though Thomas is much more consistent. I’m sure that they would find issue with Incorporation of the First Amendment. I consider myself to be an originalist, for the most part, with disagreements with the philosophy on only a few issues.

I believe that the government should take a deistic view to God, and have absolutely no preference at all to any particular religion and I believe that the states should take a similar view.

And, no, I’m not an atheist. I am a Christian.

As long as the state is not collecting money to be distributed to the religion, I don't see any conflict whatsoever. Shouldn't the Christians have equal access to the specialty plates - the secular humanists already have theirs in SC.

As long as the state is not collecting money to be distributed to the religion, I don't see any conflict whatsoever.

It is promotion of the religion via a governmental entity. That is support (which doesn't have to be monetary) of a particular religion.

Why do you need a license plate to prove or express your religious beliefs? If you want something like that so bad, just buy a fish and stick it on your car.

I don't. I don't understand any of those specialty plates and you would always benefit the group you support to a higher degree if you sent a check to them directly without the state taking their cut.

Having said that, the state is not sanctioning any of those things by putting pictures or words on the back of your car. You are in complete control over that. All I am really asserting is that whatever regulations states have wrapped around their money stream, they should be consistent with it. If they let the Secular Humanists have their plates, the Christians ought to be allowed to have theirs.