Posted on 05/01/2002 2:59:46 AM PDT by kattracks
CNSNews.com) - A federal court in Virginia has ruled that a group known as the Sons of Confederate Veterans has the right to join other special interest groups in issuing privatized license plates in the state containing the Confederate flag logo. But another group is urging the Virginia state government to appeal the decision.
In its unanimous verdict, issued Monday, a three-judge panel from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va. said efforts to restrict the use of the logo are "an instance of viewpoint discrimination."
The Rutherford Institute, a non-profit civil liberties group, defended the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) in court. "This is a victory not just for the thousands of members of the SCV but for everyone who has used their license plates as a means of personal expression," John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, said.
In 1999, the Virginia General Assembly approved a specialty license plate for the group but censored the use of the Confederate flag.
Whitehead told CNSNews.com a lower court ruled in favor of the SCV and its right to display the Confederate flag on its privatized license plates in the state of Virginia. But the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles (VDMV) appealed the case to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
"The court of appeals has issued a ringing affirmation of the free speech principles that license plates are personal expression and that government officials cannot censor that expression just because it's unpopular," Whitehead said.
Edwin Deason, national commander in chief of the SCV, said it was reassuring to see that the group was being afforded its constitutional right to freedom of expression.
Deason said many states have been involved in similar lawsuits. Residents in the states of Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana and Alabama currently have the right to display the SCV logo, including the Confederate battle flag on license plates.
Efforts are also underway in Tennessee and West Virginia to approve the use of similar privatized license plate, Deason said.
Whitehead said more than a thousand people were on the waiting list to obtain SCV license plates in Virginia. "What [the decision] says is that free speech is still alive. The court here has confirmed that you cannot discriminate upon the basis of what someone has to say once the government has opened a forum."
Deason also denied that the reason for including the battle flag on the license plate had anything to do with racism. "First of all, it is the Saint Andrew's cross that makes up a big portion of our logo, and around that is 'Sons of Confederate Veterans 1896.' So, there is nothing racist about it whatsoever. The Saint Andrew's cross, I always thought, was a good thing," he said.
Salim Khalfani, executive director of the Virginia chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), disagreed. "It is offensive to a significant number of the populous because of what it stands for; particular to people of African descent is terrorism, intimidation, harassment and even murder when it is used by those kinds of hate groups," Khalfani said.
He added that the Virginia NAACP is urging the attorney general and governor to continue the appeal process. "We have taken a position against the symbol being on the license plate, and the state needs to be able to control what goes on its license plates. It needs to get out of the business of issuing [private plates]," Khalfani said.
"No other group has suffered like those of African descendants here. Over 100 million lives were lost in our enslavement, so any group that was supporting slavery and wants to continue to parade that in our face, we are going to be opposed to when it comes into the public sector," Khalfani said.
E-mail a news tip to Matt Pyeatt.
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look for a loyal son/daughter of dixie to be the VA GOP candidate next time-KILGORE in 2004!
for dixie,sw
sw:
What is the status of that case?
Deo Vindice,
CD
Did you know that Abe Lincoln's mother and older sister are actually buried on a piece of land our family owned back in pioneer days?
It's now a state park and all are free to go and honor him at the place where he grew up.
Illinois is where he became a lawyer, but his moral strength came from good Hoosier roots.
Thanks. All this CSA worship makes my gorge rise.
Walt
al-Amin (a Richmond City Councilman) told the city council that "we are gonna rumble" when they put up a mural sized picture of General Robert E. Lee on the flood wall of the canal walk in Richmond a few years ago.
May 03, 2002
State bows in battle on Confederate tags
Warner, Kilgore defer to U.S. courtBY JEFF E. SCHAPIRO
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Virginia is running up the white flag of surrender in the legal flap over license plates featuring the Confederate colors.
Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore and Gov. Mark R. Warner bowed to a federal court edict requiring the state to make available the disputed tags, which had been sought by the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Having lost twice - at trial in 2001 and on appeal this week - the state likely would be thwarted in the U.S. Supreme Court, if the justices even took the case, Kilgore said.
"It is time to move on," Kilgore told reporters yesterday at the Capitol.
Warner, in a written statement released shortly after Kilgore disclosed that there would be no further appeals, said the court rulings in the case "must be respected as the law of the land."
However, the dispute over the license plates - and the Civil War symbol that they will feature - raged on, a reminder of the enduring clash of emotions engendered by Virginia's distinction as the principal seat of the Confederacy.
Confederate heritage advocates said they'd been unfairly attacked as racists, when their interests were only historical. Foes, among them black lawmakers who consider the Confederate flag a symbol of hate, predicted that the state could be required to issue plates featuring swastikas and burnt crosses.
"It is amazing that in so many ways that the [Civil War] is not over," said Charles F. Bryan Jr., director of the Virginia Historical Society. "In the hearts and minds of so many people, the emotion of that war, the pain and suffering, is far from over."
In Virginia, a minimum of 350 prepaid applications for a specialty tag must be submitted to the Department of Motor Vehicles before the plates can be produced. Manufacturing takes eight to nine weeks.
In one of the biggest programs of its kind in the nation, Virginia offers 180 specialty license plates. They're displayed by 20 percent of the 6.7 million passenger vehicles registered in the state, said DMV spokeswoman Pam Goheen. Last year, sales of the tags generated $4.8 million, she said.
Brag Bowling of Richmond, chairman of the Sons of Confederate Veterans Legislative Committee, said his organization would file at least 1,000 applications with DMV.
Welcoming the Kilgore and Warner announcements, Bowling said of the plates, "It might be offensive to some Virginians, but it's a symbol of history to thousands of Virginians."
Bowling, a real estate investor, said he will order three tags - one for his red pickup truck, the others for a convertible and a Jeep.
When first proposed in 1999 by Del. Joe T. May, R-Loudoun, on behalf of fellow members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the plate - largely designed by the 3,000-member group - included a logo inspired by the Confederate battle flag, or Southern Cross.
Under pressure from critics, most notably Del. Jerrauld C. Jones, D-Norfolk, former chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus, the General Assembly stripped the symbol from the plate.
That triggered a lawsuit by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, who prevailed at trial in Roanoke's U.S. District Court, and this past Monday before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on the state's challenge to the lower court finding.
The trial and appellate courts decreed that in banning the Confederate symbol, while allowing license plates with the logos of other organizations and causes, the state was violating First Amendment, or free speech, rights.
Though publicly supportive of the decision not to challenge the appeals court decision, Jones yesterday predicted the assembly - because of the rulings - might be forced to sanction tags even more provocative than those won by the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
"That is what we have to look for and contemplate," he said.
Jones said a possible solution is to do away with the specialty plate program altogether. Sen. John C. Watkins, R-Chesterfield, this year pushed legislation curtailing the novelty tags.
Specialty license plates in Virginia tout universities and colleges - in-state and beyond - as well as animal rights, bowling, amateur radio, lighthouse preservation, fishing and aviation.
According to the SCV's Bowling, Confederate tags are available in at least eight Southern states. Federal courts in Maryland and North Carolina ruled that the Sons of Confederate Veterans are entitled to the plates.
Contact Jeff E. Schapiro at (804) 649-6814 or jschapiro@timesdispatch.com
FR Thread from 1.18.2001: Judge rules Va. must allow confederate license plates
(From the New Orleans 1906 S.C.V. and U.C.V. Reunion.)
"To you, Sons of Confederate Veterans, we will commit the vindication of the cause for which we fought. To your strength will be given the defense of the Confederate soldier's good name, the guardianship of his history, the emulation of his virtues, and the perpetuation of those principles he loved and which you love also, and those ideals which made him glorious and which you also cherish. Are you ready to die for your country? Is your life worthy to be remembered along with theirs? Do you choose for yourself this greatness of soul?
To you daughters of the Confederacy, will be given the loving service of remembering the Confederate dead and of ministering to the living who were dear to him and are in need of your help and tenderness. Worthy daughters you shall be to the immortal women, your mothers, who gave to womanhood a new perfection of heroism and a more divine expression of sacrifice and devotion.
To you, brave people of the South; to you, true-hearted Americans everywhere; to you, world-conquering race from which we sprung --to all men everywhere who prize in man the manliest deeds, who love in man the love of country, who praise fidelity and courage, who honor self-sacrifice and noble devotion, will be given an incomparable inheritance, the memory of our prince of men, the Confederate soldier."
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PINKO ALERT
Wlat I wonder if these people know how you and your fellow travelers vote?
Here is your reply to Leesylvanian from another thread:
==================================
Leesylvanian:
Keep in mind when dealing with WP that you're dealing with a man who favors the government's rights/authority over those of the people. He voted for Clinton twice. 'Nuff said!
Wlat (WhiskeyPapa):
Well, I've never said I voted for Clinton twice, so I am glad you will be glad to post a retraction.What I said was that I had never voted for a Republican presidential candidate. I voted for John Anderson in 1980. In '84 I voted Democratic. Same in '88. In '92 I DID vote for Clinton, although I was for Perot until he went batty. In'96 I didn't vote. In '00, I did vote for Al Gore. --Walt
780 posted on 2/28/02 10:49 AM Pacific by WhiskeyPapa
Kidd rejected criticism of the plates, saying they are about "family and heritage" and should not be offensive to anyone. He said the group rejects the racist beliefs of organizations that in the past used the Confederate battle flag as a rallying symbol against blacks."When people see us riding down the road with these license plates, know that the man riding behind the wheel is honoring his family," Kidd said. "No derogatory statement toward anyone. We promote everyone honoring their ancestors and their descendants."
for dixie,sw
for dixie,sw
EARLY is a carpetbagger-GOV. warner, OTOH, is a scalawag and NOTHING is lower than a scalawag! NOTHING!
it was openly said before the election: are you voting for the carpetbagger or the scalawag??? everyone here KNEW which was which!
for dixie,sw
for a FREE dixie,sw
the correct answer is : NEITHER-i couldn't vote for a carpetbagger and i sure wouldn't vote for the SCALAWAG! NOTHING is LOWER than a scalawag!
for dixie,sw
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