Posted by
Craig Freeborn on Monday, February 12, 2007 12:39:37 AM
My Grandmother used to tell us “Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face”. Now, I not sure how many politicians she knew, but she did know spiteful, self-destructive, childish behavior when she saw it. And we’re seeing it again today in the Illinois State Legislature.
A little background. Illinois began offering specialty license plates to former POWs in 1980, and has expanded the list of available plates until today there are 60 different designs. For an extra registration fee, as well as higher annual renewal fees (which vary by plate), Illinois residents can show their support for various causes such as Organ Donation, Mammograms, Hospice Care, and the Environment. The extra fees are split between the state and the specified cause – the state’s share amounting to tens of millions of dollars over the years.
Groups wishing to add a license plate supporting their cause must submit 850 valid signatures – lowered from the original requirement of 10,000 signatures – submit a design, and await legislative approval.
Illinois legislators were sitting fat and happy with this arrangement. That is until a few years ago when “Choose Life Illinois Inc.”, a group made up of adoption advocates, petitioned for a “Choose Life” license plate. They had over 25,000 valid signatures.
Pro-choice advocates went apoplectic. Although the purpose of the plates would be to promote adoption, they just can’t have cars driving around the state sporting “Choose Life” license plates which might cut into their abortion business! Why, desperate young girls and women facing an unexpected change in their comfortable lifestyles might just be reminded that they actually do have a choice!
Sidebar
Interestingly, presidential hopeful, and darling of what I call the “mid-evil media”, Barack Obama, was a state senator when legislation for the Choose Life plates was introduced. He voted against it saying, “If we're going to promote one side, the other side has to be promoted as well.”
I see his point though. Somehow “Choose Abortion”, or “Choose Death”, or maybe “A Mother’s Right…Tear them Limb from Limb” somehow just don’t seem quite as noble.
End Sidebar
Democrat State Rep. Lou Lang even went so far as to charge anti-abortion advocates with joining Choose Life Illinois Inc. to promote a campaign to ban abortions. To this charge I say “So what?” If “pro-choice” advocates are really pro-choice, why do they try to stifle any mention of a choice?
The answer, of course, is that they really aren’t pro-choice as much as they are pro-abortion, and consider anyone with a different view to be the enemy. As such, they will go to any length to silence them – legal or otherwise.
Year after year, Choose Life folks met all the requirements for Illinois Specialty License Plates, and year after year the legislature voted them down. Left with no other options, Choose Life filed a federal lawsuit in 2004.
Last month, the Northern Illinois District Court ruled that in disapproving Choose Life specialty license plates the Illinois legislature was “viewpoint discriminatory” and in violation of the First Amendment. It then ordered the Secretary of State to issue the Choose Life plates.
Ah, but as my grandmother also used to say. “life isn’t always fair”. And neither, apparently, are Democrats in the Illinois legislature.
Exhibiting what can only be called obsessive/compulsive behavior, these “representatives of the people” have thrown themselves on the ground, kicking and screaming in the legislative equivalent of a two-year-old’s temper tantrum. At the expense of millions of dollars a year to not only the state, but to 60 worthy causes, Illinois Democrats are threatening to scrap the specialty license program entirely!
The irony of their hissy-fit has completely escaped them. It seems these “pro-choice” supporters will go to any length to prevent Freeborn Americans who support other choices from getting their message out.
All of which reminds me of one other saying my grandmother often used: “Actions speak louder than words.”