yesterday j1 went to the license branch to renew the plates on the cherokee, forester and accent.
she was asked on two of the three cars if she wanted the “in god we trust” plate or the regular plate.
this is in spite of the fact that the “in god we trust” is just one of over seventy “special” plates that the state of indiana makes available.
the BMV’s official stance is:
The Indiana BMV follows established laws and makes sure they are implemented properly and fairly…. (T)he BMV simply does not promote any plate design over another. There are dozens of options, and a substantial number of customers have simply elected to place this particular plate on their vehicles.
that was in response to a lawsuit that has was filed about this issue.
but they clearly are promoting that plate over others as j1 was offered that plate specifically, and not any of the others.
the only car they didn’t offer it on was the forrester, about which the lady merely asked, “would you like to keep your `kids first` plate?”
the sponsor of the bill (dan burton) that mandated creation of the plates:
I’m a Christian, but I don’t care if you’re Christian or Jewish or Muslim,” Burton said. “Your god may not be my god, but this is still a country that’s based on faith. Why can’t you tout that on your license plate?
you can tout that, dan, but it ought to cost the same as the seventy-four other non-standard plates that the state makes available.
the plate supposedly doesn’t have a charge attached to it because of some fear that charging for a religiously themed plate would violate the church/state thingy, so it was introduced with no fee instead.
but i think it’s obvious what is going on: dan burton, and many others, think that it is perfectly ok for the state to set itself apart as “trusting in god”, if not outright “christian”.
it irks me that the kids first plate costs $25 more than the in god we trust plate, and it irks me that the bmv is promoting the god plate even though they say they are not.