Saturday, June 7, 2008

Keep Your Gods Off Our License Plates

South Carolina drivers will be the first in the nation to be offered license plates that carry the phrase “I Believe” and a Christian cross over a stained-glass window under a law that took effect on Thursday.

Critics have threatened to fight the law in court, saying the license plate represents an illegal state endorsement of religion.

The bill authorizing the plate passed the State House and Senate unanimously on May 22. It became law without the signature of Gov. Mark Sanford, a Republican, under the South Carolina Constitution.

“While I do, in fact, ‘believe,’ it is my personal view that the largest proclamation of one’s faith ought to be in how one lives one’s life,” Mr. Sanford wrote on Thursday in a letter to Glenn F. McConnell, president pro tem of the Senate and a fellow Republican.

Kudos to Governor Sanford and I hope the threatened fight from critics materializes and stops this abomination of governmental religious spending and unconstitutional promotion of religion.

McCain Not a Supporter of Habeas Corpus

If elected president, Senator John McCain would reserve the right to run his own warrantless wiretapping program against Americans, based on the theory that the president's wartime powers trump federal criminal statutes and court oversight, according to a statement released by his campaign Monday.

McCain's new tack towards the Bush administration's theory of executive power comes some 10 days after a McCain surrogate stated, incorrectly it seems, that the senator wanted hearings into telecom companies' cooperation with President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program, before he'd support giving those companies retroactive legal immunity.

Perhaps the only reason I am saddened that Senator Hillary Clinton is not the Democratic nominee (and even the next president) is because I'd relish seeing all of these right-wing supporters of civil rights violations wring their hands and wail at the thought of Hillary Clinton wielding such power...

I truly hope the country gets it right in November and elects Barack Obama instead of Grandpa Munster.