Infringement of Religious Freedom in Process
The Miami Herald reports that Florida’s legislature is debating a bill that would introduce religious symbols on specialty license plates. Florida and many other states issue license plates with various symbols and images for which drivers pay a premium to have. These designs are sanctioned by the state and profits go to support various charities. This bill would introduce a variety of religious designs not just Christian. Of course, if you read the Miami Herald piece you would think this was the State of Florida establishing a religion. The writer deliberately leaves out the real issue which is that the government can accommodate religious symbols on license plates if they are providing more than one religious design.
First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”1
The first amendment of the US constitution protects citizens from government intrusion on their inherent freedom to practice their religion. Government can “make no law” to establish a national or state sanctioned religion, nor can they prohibit citizens from practicing their beliefs. Creating “religious” license plates is not a law to establish religion especially if several religions are represented. Actually, all they need is to provide two different religions and they cannot be accused of establishing a religion.
I suggest that the two religions should be Christianity (the most popular) and Atheism (the base of opposition). The Christian design should have a cross while the atheist design should be just empty space which accurately represent each belief system.
As usual, the only people who really oppose the bill are atheists, ACLU (Atheist Coalition to Lie and Undermine), and secular humanists. All of which have a worldview and religion of their own collectively known as “Secularism”.
Secularism: “secular spirit or tendency, esp. a system of political or social philosophy that rejects all forms of religious faith and worship.”2
By rejecting all religion you are establishing the religion of non-belief. Atheism is a religious world view. It is view which says “there is no god”. That is a theological statement not a scientific one which many atheists would have you believe. If these “secular” groups influence the government to establish secularism as the de facto position of the government then the government is establishing a religion. However, as long as the lie that Atheism and Secularism (or Secular Humanism) are not religions, the government will continue to establish these as the standard and restrict the free exercise of religion for everyone else. Both points completely violate the first amendment of the constitution.
This license plate bill will most likely go down in flames because of the continued assault on religious freedom in this country. The victory for the Atheists and Secularists is the banishment of Christianity. If a bill was presented to congress to do so, I am quite sure that the ACLU wouldn’t say a thing about it. This, after all, is the real goal. Don’t be fooled.
The constitution does not specifically address the issue of whether or not it’s okay for the government to make religious license plates. While it’s true that this is not an instance of the government establishing a state religion by law, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s an acceptable thing to do.
The first amendment was written with the understanding that it’s simply not a good idea to have government sanctioning certain religious beliefs. Although the first amendment only specifically prohibits establishing religious law, the basic principle behind it – that mixing state and religion is a bad idea, can be applied to the issue of license plates. Something can technically be constitutional but still be a bad idea.
Personally I am fine with the government issuing these plates as long as they fairly accommodate people of all faiths and beliefs. And in doing so, atheist license plates should read “There is no God.” rather than be blank, as even this article admits that this is the atheist’s worldview and would not be adequately expressed if it were merely empty space(which would connote more of an agnostic “no comment” stance on the issue).
But overall it seems kinda silly for the government to be including religious messages on it’s plates since it’s not the role of government to be commenting on religious issues.