Posted on 12/05/2014 12:28:05 PM PST by GIdget2004
The Supreme Court is taking on a free speech case over a proposed license plate in Texas that would feature the Confederate battle flag.
The case involves the government's ability to choose among the political messages it allows drivers to display on state-issued license plates.
The justices said Friday they will review a lower court ruling in favor of the Texas Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The group is seeking a specialty plate with its logo bearing the battle flag, similar to plates issued by several other states that were part of the Confederacy.
The case will be argued in March.
A state motor vehicle board rejected the application because of concerns the Confederate flag would offend many Texans who believe the flag is a racially charged symbol of repression. But a panel of federal appeals court judges ruled that the board's decision violated the group's First Amendment rights.
Texas offers more than 350 specialty plates, the group said in its court filing. They include plates that say "Choose Life," ''God Bless Texas," ''Fight Terrorism," as well as others in support of Boy Scouts, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, blood donations, pro sports teams and colleges.
The state said in its Supreme Court appeal that the decision to reject the Sons of Confederate Veterans' license plate was not discrimination because the motor vehicle board had not approved a license plate expressing any view about the Confederacy or the battle flag.
Other federal appeals courts have come to differing conclusions on the issue, the state said.
(Excerpt) Read more at bigstory.ap.org ...
What the hell business is it of the feds what Texans put on their license plates?
Guess they have a lot of free time on their hands and no sense on what’s important.
You can put little stick-on flags on or near your plate. The Civil War (or the war of Secession) was about states rights not slavery - Lincoln made it into that.
***Texas offers more than 350 specialty plates,***
Do they have a COME AND TAKE IT! plate?
Some messages are more equal than others, apparently.
“What the hell business is it of the feds what Texans put on their license plates?”
Exactly, the State or Texas has decided not to allow the Confederate License Plate and it is no place for the federal courts to step in and force Texas to issue the Confederate Flag plates.
Never even thought of the Confederate flag and slavery in the same breath....And then all this PC cr** started.
Another day. Another piece of nit wittery.
How deep is the rabbit hole?
The feds are involved because Texas denied the plate, but the individuals are pushing to get it allowed.
That's my disclaimer. I'm getting so almighty tired of pusillanimous girly-men trying to erase the Confederate States of America from US history that I'm almost ready to get a Confederate Battle Flag and flying it in front of my home.
The Confederacy generated a litany of GREAT, GREAT role models if these gonadless, illiterate liberals would take five minutes and just read the history...just once...before trying to tear it all apart.
Sorry for the rant. These semi-virs want to tear it apart...that, and they can't read.
It’s their business because the government of Texas is subservient to the government of the United States. The South fought a war of rebellion against the United States government and lost.
The losers in war do not get to dictate the terms of their surrender. It doesn’t matter that a hundred fifty years have passed. You lost the right to fly that flag in an American governmental capacity when you lost that war. One of the outcomes of the war: the flag of your country is the stars and stripes and no other.
I don’t care if you fly that flag in your front yard; you are back jn the union, and your rights under the Constitution have been restored. I care very much that an arm of the State is issuing a flag other than the American on state documents, which is what a license plate is.
I have to put up with people flying flags other than the American flag in my state, California, in their front yards; I do not have to put up with foreign flags on official state documents or in front of state buildings. That goes for the Confederate flag.
There is no room in our increasingly balkanized country for any but the American flag.
It’s only important from the standpoint that some Texas technocrat at the Department of Revenue, Motor Vehicle Division thinks that they get to arbitrate free speech. The only reason License plates exist is to insure revenue collection. Where did I hear about abuse of power to insure revenue collection? Could that have been New York City?
Re-read my post: I meant that Texas is doing the right thing in opposing those who would force the government to issue the plate, not that Texas is already issuing the plate.
Your point would have been reasonable before the 14th Amendment (14A) was ratified. But when the states ratified 14A not only did they commit themselves to respect constitutionally enumerated protections, but they also gave the feds the power get involved in issues concerning possibly unreasonable abridgments of constitutionally enumerated rights by the states.
Also provided a unique identifier for vehicles in crimes and hit and run activity.
What is there to “take on”?
They either respect the right to free speech or they allow the government to infringe on it.
I did not sue anyone when the city of Washington, DC started putting “Taxation Without Representation” on THEIR license plates without reading the Constitution to learn the correct, legal status of that particular District.
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