Quote:
Amendment I
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.
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I've rethought this a few times, but here is my current stance. First, this is NOT in violation of the first amendment. You can look at the specifics and say that this applies only to Federal congressional law. I think that may be partly the intent. State and local laws were intended to allow smaller subsections of the populace to govern themselves to some degree, without federal intervention. This was very important to the founding fathers, allowing smaller subsections of government a lot of freedom. Disallowing the federal government from establishing a state religion allows freedom to stay in the US and worship how you choose.
Secondly, offering a vanity plate is not the establishment of religion. However, disallowing the option could be construed as prohibiting free exercise thereof. I agree that the lack of interest in other religions might make it unreasonable to develop Judaism plates and Islam plates, especially in that region of the country. Go to NY or CA and you might have more chance of one of those two (in MI we could probably hock enough Crescent Moon plates to make them viable). Also, due to the first amendment, the Fed doesn't really have the authority to step in on a State's right to offer such plates. As for fairness, the Constitution does not guarantee a "Right to Fairness". Life is not fair now just like like was not fair in 1776. Deal with it!
Meh! I dislike the idea, but I can't actually find anything logically or legally wrong with it.