Driving Them Crazy
The ACLU has withdrawn a lawsuit seeking to stop Ohio from the further sale of “Choose Life” license plates to drivers in that state. This followed an earlier decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to let stand a Sixth Circuit opinion upholding Tennessee’s right to continue a similar program.
According to today’s Columbus-Dispatch story cited above, “the customized plates cost an extra $30, with $20 going toward nonprofit groups that help place children in adoptive homes. The remainder pays for the custom plate.” They have been a popular selection since their introduction last year.
The argument, a silly stretch even by ACLU “standards,” was that state-administered “Choose Life” plates, albeit a voluntary purchase and for a fee, were unconstitutional because they represented just one side of the abortion debate.
This seemingly small case is noteworthy because it lays bare several tenets of the Left’s ethos.
First, if it is about abortion, it’s worth every penny to fight. National Review’s Senior Editor, Ramesh Ponnuru, offers the most comprehensive and insightful treatment of the topic in Party of Death, his must-read book published earlier this year. Ramesh methodically deconstructs how the Left has used abortion as to hijack the Democratic Party, direct its resources, and expand its agenda into other areas debasing the sanctity of human life.
Second, if one cannot respond through the proper channels, e.g., lobby for one’s own customized plates, then one should use the courts. The ACLU and its abortion advocate friends could have done precisely what the pro-lifers did by asking for a tag of their own. But what might it have said and shown…“Anti-Life,” with a baby pictured in one of those red circles with the diagonal slash? And who would crow about the proceeds of plate sales going toward abortion.. er…“family planning?”
Alternatives to show their true colors also exist apart from the license plate route. Buy a hybrid car. Burn a bra. Slap on a bumper sticker that brags, “I killed my baby.” That would be cheaper than 30 bucks for the plate. These are losing propositions, of course, that no one – literally – would buy. So they revert to begging judges to upend opponents’ rights to free speech and commercial enterprise.
A cursory view of websites for several state Departments of Motor Vehicles (DMV) reveals myriad opportunities to put junk on your trunk by way of personalized license plates. Take Virginia for example:
http://www.dmv.org/va-virginia/license-plates. There are over 180 choices to express one’s allegiance to colleges, wildlife species, professions and ideas. Some are downright odd or idiosyncratic, and you may not see them anywhere beyond the website.
Under the ACLU logic, each choice would have an untenable consequence. Consider: the display of the “Greyhound Adopt” plate could make the Welsh Corgi Rescue Society feel slighted. Ducks and mallards? Vegans in Virginia should cry foul (“fowl”). “The Virginia Society of CPAs” might induce acts of road rage around April 15.
Until recently, George and I had cars registered in Virginia, where for a nominal fee one can support the Washington Redskins on his license plate. But not the Philadelphia Eagles, our personal favorite, for which we are season ticket holders. Who to sue for this gross injustice?
Then there are the humdingers available through the Virginia DMV that somehow have escaped the notice of the ACLU, the smoke-free freaks, Jesse Jackson, Carolyn McCarthy, and the rest of the gang: “Tobacco Heritage,” “National Rifle Association,” (which George had on his Corvette), and Sons of Confederate Veterans, complete with flag and available for motorcycles or autos. Suddenly, I wish we still lived in Virginia, and I wish I had more cars to festoon with a couple of these gems.
But none of these messages are so audacious as to suggest that one cherish or choose or celebrate life, a threat to the Left’s fixation on abortion so real, so raw that it drove the ACLU all the way to the Supreme Court.
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