This City Will No Longer Celebrate Church Anniversaries on Vehicle Stickers

What is the purpose of these stickers?

Low-priority? Maybe. But I can tell you I’d be pretty damn pissed if I had to drive around with that on my car.

Heidi, it’s probably parking. Non-residents will only be allowed to park in certain areas for a restricted time while residents can park there overnight (etc) since they live there.

Add me to the ‘What the hell are these for, anyway’ list… What is the city requiring stickers for? What if I drove my car through that city? I won’t have a sticker….

Oh, OK. Thanks. I’ve never lived anywhere that had something like that.

It’s not so much a church-state issue as a forced speech issue.  I would have no problem with a historical commemorative banner on government property as long as it was done on an equal basis, i.e. other groups (religious and secular) were commemorated at other times.

According to Rob Sherman’s page, they are municipal vehicle tax stickers.  Having lived in MD, VA, and NC, I’ve never heard of such a thing before; are such things common in other parts of the country?

They are very popular in our state. In fact, I was sitting in the passenger seat of another car, for a city outside of Chicago, and I was surprised to see “In God We Trust” or “God Bless America” in the inside facing portion of the sticker. For three hours, I had to look at this statement, endorsed and pushed by this city with taxpayer dollars.

The owner didn’t even know it was there when I inquired about it.

These stickers, required my many cities–throughout Chicagoland anyway–are a tax on each vehicle costing as little as $5.00 a year(rare), to over $90.00 but most commonly around $15.00 a year and once again, that’s per vehicle, not per household or business.

No city can argue that it is appropriate to tax their citizens while making them endorse religion!

I think it’s an inspection sticker.

I live the Chicago burbs (and have been here for 10 years) and I don’t buy these stickers. I just park in my garage. They only give tickets for vehicles parked overnight.

Let’s get a copy of Rob’s presentation!  Sounds like he did something right, and maybe his presentation can be used as a template for future conflicts. 

Oh, wow! Looks like I’m wrong. They’re evidently a tax sticker. Much worse than parking… well, unless it’s a rainy night and you really need a spot.

I live in Oklahoma and not even our tags have something like this on them.  Actually 10 or so years ago inspection stickers were officially removed as a requirement (though bits of stray tire all over the road each summer suggest that people don’t tend to upkeep their vehicles now, or can’t afford to).

It’s lower priority than the pledge of allegiance, but it’s a clear promotion of religion, so yes, I’d say that a lawsuit actually COULD have merit here, but going the presentation route before-hand worked out for the best in this case.  After that, I’d say go petition, then protest, then the legal route, if it came to that, but this one is pretty open and shut as far as crossing the line goes.

Forgot to add this.  I agree that this was the perfect response.  Sometimes I get concerned about the price of fixing a mistake even on a issue that I think is worth fighting.  In this case, the perfect response to negate that is exactly what he did, let people alter it, let it be known that this is not acceptable, and officially ban such recognition on a legally required sticker like this in the future.  No one could complain about financial waste here.  Such recognition can be done in other ways, perhaps as a bullet point on a list of similar anniversaries.

Props to the mayor for actually acknowledging the Constitution and agreeing to remove the religious symbols. We see too many officials ignore this kind of blatant violation while giving the excuse of a) America is a Christian nation or b) Stop being a militant atheist! 

Props to the mayor for actually acknowledging the Constitution and agreeing to remove the religious symbols. We see too many officials ignore this kind of blatant violation while giving the excuse of a) America is a Christian nation or b) Stop being a militant atheist! 

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In my opinion, this is another zero. It’s an acknowledgement of an historical event relevant to a group in the community. It’s not an endorsement of the church. I’d feel the same if it said Such and Such Mosque 1952-2012, or Such and Such Chinese Community Centre 1905-2005 or Gay Pride Festival 1991-2011. However, if the sticker said something about a God or supported a religious sentiment (like ChrisTK’s friend’s stickers), that would be something to speak up about.

These are similar to license plate stickers in that they show you paid your village/city/town vehicle tax for the year.  Contrary to what is stated above, you CAN be ticketed for failing to display it if you park on any public street or lot in your village.  This is a major source of revenue for municipalities in  the Chicago area, however not all towns require them.  The cost runs from $5 to $90 per year, depending on how greedy your municipality is.  It has nothing to do with an inspection and is not a parking permit – parking permits are an additional fee.

Exactly, this is a non-issue, it’s not an endorsment.

Non issue? I suppose you’d be fine being taxed and having to display this sticker on your car, right?