SC ordered to stop making religious license plates

COLUMBIA, S.C. - South Carolina must stop marketing and making licenses plates that feature the image of a cross and the words "I Believe" while a lawsuit challenging the plates' constitutionality goes forward, a federal judge ruled on Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie issued the temporary injunction after an hour-long court hearing in which opponents argued the plates, which depict a stained-glass window with a cross on the left hand side and the words "I Believe" across the top, violate the separation of church and state.

Earlier this year, Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State sued state officials on behalf of two Christian pastors, a humanist pastor and a rabbi in South Carolina, along with the Hindu American Foundation, after a bill creating the license plates sailed through South Carolina's Legislature. It became law without the signature of Gov. Mark Sanford, who said the state already allows private groups to create license plates for any cause. Americans United objected to the plates, arguing in that South Carolina's government is endorsing Christianity by allowing the plates.

"What we have here is the Legislature taking it upon itself to pass a statute creating a uniquely Christian license plate," Ayesha Khan, attorney for Americans United, argued during the hearing in Columbia.

In her order, Currie sided with Americans United, writing that Khan had made a good enough case that the plates violate the First Amendment's Establishment Clause to put the plates on hold. The clause prohibits Congress from making any "law respecting an establishment of religion."

Under the injunction, the state Department of Motor Vehicles cannot take any more orders for the plates and must stop all associated advertising and marketing efforts. Department spokeswoman Beth Parks said the agency stopped taking orders more than a month ago, after it collected the 400 needed to cover the cost of making the plates.

Those who wanted the special tag were charged $5 to cover the additional cost of making them, on top of the usual annual vehicle registration fee of $24. None of the 400 who placed orders have received the plates, and an attorney for the DMV says he will keep fighting to get them the license tags they've paid for.

"We're disappointed, but we also understand this is the first step in a long process," said Kevin Hall, who said his clients will soon decide whether to appeal Currie's injunction. "Are we going to say it's OK in a public square to express a preference for a football team, and then we say any expression for a religious viewpoint is unacceptable?"

After the order was issued, Khan said her group was already getting prepared for possible appeals.

"The Legislature of South Carolina should refrain from expressing a preference for any one religion over others," Khan said. "They government ought to stay out of it. ... We're prepared to litigate it as long as they want to litigate it."

Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, who offered to sponsor the plates' fees before the 400 orders were placed, said Thursday he was disappointed by the ruling but would continue the fight to make them available to South Carolina drivers.

"When you walk through the front of the U.S. Supreme Court, you know what you look above and see? You see Moses holding the tablet of the Ten Commandments over the United States Supreme Court," Bauer said. "So it's absolutely amazing to me that they would want to fight this."