Free Speech for Me, But Not for Thee: No Pro-Life License Plates in NY

Free Speech for Me, But Not for Thee: No Pro-Life License Plates in NY May 26, 2015

If you are pro-life in New York, you’d better keep it to yourself.

That’s because the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has just overturned a lower court’s decision which permitted the adoption advocacy group Children First Foundation to include the words “Choose Life” on its license plates.

It appears that the plates may, in the court’s opinion, encourage road rage. John Burger writes, over at Aleteia:

According to Judge Rosemary Pooler, who wrote the majority opinion in The Children First Foundation v. Fiala, the content of custom plates was “private speech” and the plates themselves a “nonpublic forum.” Therefore the DMV’s uniform policy of excluding controversial, politically sensitive messages from plates, which the agency said stemmed from highway safety concerns, was “reasonable and viewpoint neutral, which is all that the First Amendment requires.”

For the record: There are 29 states which currently have pro-life license plates, and no one has died as a result.

One hates to think that the Supreme Court will have to take up its time discussing things like this–but it appears that’s where this is headed.

 

 


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