Following a judge's ruling that South Carolina's "I Believe" license plates are unconstitutional, advocates have quickly adopted another route toward Christian car tags, one they hope will avoid the church-state problem. Like most states, South Carolina has a provision that allows private groups to request specialty plates. If enough residents sign up to purchase one, they will be made, paid for by those sporting them on their cars. This removes the legislature from initiating the process that would have created the "I Believe" plates originally.
The plaintiffs who just won the lawsuit that killed the General Assembly-sanctioned “I Believe” license tag are saying they won't protest Smith's plan — as long as it's a private group, and not state government, that is sponsoring the tag.
“This would be a specialty license tag like all the other specialty tags,” said the Rev. Neal Jones, one of the four plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit over separation of church and state. “It would be an expression of freedom of speech by a private group, and we don't have a problem with that.”
