by Jill Stanek
Picking up where Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn left off, an editorial in today's USA Today stated:
The Illinois judge is just the latest to state the obvious: Once a state opens the door to using license plates to advocate a cause, it can't slam the door shut because the cause is unpopular or controversial. It's an all-or-nothing situation.
But "nothing" increasingly appears to be the smarter choice.
USA Today also published a counterpoint by our own Tom Brejcha, the IL Choose Life attorney:
Banning use of states' specialty license plates for privately sponsored messages would shut down one of the increasingly few public media available — and affordable — for ordinary folks to "have their say."
Such a ban would also shut down a key revenue source for government (our state of Illinois has been in fiscal crisis for years) as well as for cash-strapped private charities and the causes they promote....
Why do "Choose Life" plates, in particular, trigger such extreme reactions?
We profess to tolerate any speech that isn't "obscene" or "threatening," or "fighting words," or an incitement to imminent lawless violence — even if that message is abhorrent to us. Indeed, we allow neo-Nazis to march past Holocaust survivors in Skokie, Ill., preaching hate and death.
So why can't some citizens urge others to "choose life"?
