Pubdate: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 Source: Montgomery Advertiser (AL) Copyright: 2002sThe Advertiser Co. Contact: http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1088 DON'T LET TAGS PROMOTE CAUSES If someone asked the state oversight committee that approves state specialty licenses plate for a "Legalize Marijuana" tag, we suspect the committee would quickly turns thumbs down on the request. But the committee approved an equally controversial plate that says "Choose Life," a highly publicized motto of groups that oppose abortion rights. So why is one OK, and the other not? We suspect that if a proponent of legalizing marijuana, or of any of dozens of other controversial causes, went to court, Alabamians would find (probably after a lengthy and costly court battle) that if the state is going to open its license plates up to a few controversial issues, it will have to open them up to others. So the state of Alabama could soon be advertising itself all over the nation's highways with license plates that promote the South seceding from the Union, as the League of the South has proposed, or banning flouride or putting the Confederate battle flag back up over the Capitol or taking it down or whatever is the cause of the year. This is not about whether abortion laws in the United States are what they should be; it is about whether the state of Alabama should open up its license plates to serve as billboards for causes. In Alabama, a committee of legislators and other state and county officials approve potential new tags. Then if any group can get 1,000 people to pay for the tags, the state will make them and issue them. Currently about 900 people have agreed to purchase the Choose Life tags. Many opponents of abortion rights will applaud those tags, of course. And those pushing the tags claim the "Choose Life" motto is innocuous. But Alabama citizens and taxpayers are all over the waterfront on the issue of abortion. At least one national poll found that when asked if they believed that all abortions should be illegal, many of the same people who said yes turned around and also answered yes when asked if the choice of having an abortion should be left solely to the discretion of a woman and her doctor. The point is that most citizens don't find themselves solely in one camp or the other on such issues as abortion. If someone wants to turn his or her bumper into a billboard for a cause, they have that right under the First Amendment. That's why bumper stickers abound. But turning their license plate into a billboard implies that the state of Alabama and all of its citizens somehow agree with whatever motto is printed. But if the state is going to do it for one controversial cause, fairness and probably the law dictate that the state should do it for any cause that can muster the money for 1,000 tags. But do we really want to go down that road? - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D