COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolinians who want to advertise their Christian faith on their car tags won’t get to anytime soon, according to a Dec. 11 ruling by a federal judge.
In a preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie ordered state officials to halt production, sales, advertising and distribution of the new license plates. The tags feature a cross superimposed on a stylized stained-glass window and the inscription “I Believe” above the tag number and the name of the state.
Currie said she issued the injunction because federal courts would likely find the law that created the plates a gross violation of the Constitution’s ban on government establishment of religion.
Currie noted that federal courts under 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, by which South Carolina is covered, use a three-pronged test established by the Supreme Court to determine if something violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. The so-called “Lemon Test” requires that any state law have a secular purpose, neither advance nor inhibit religion as its primary effect and not lead to “excessive entanglement” between religion and government.
“Based on the record now before the court, the court finds it unlikely that the I Believe Act satisfies even one of these three requirements. As the act must satisfy all three requirements to survive constitutional scrutiny, the court concludes that plaintiffs have made a strong showing of likelihood of success,” Currie wrote.
South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster, in a press statement, said he was “extremely disappointed in the court’s ruling” and believes that the plate “is completely constitutional.” He said he would urge the state motor-vehicles and corrections departments — named as defendants in the suit — to appeal the injunction immediately to the 4th Circuit.
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