This seems utterly inane:

Under a program begun in 2001, South Carolina drivers may pay a $70 fee to purchase license plates with the "Choose Life" message. The revenue generated goes toward local crisis pregnancy programs and may not, according to the statute that authorized the plates, go to any organization that provides or promotes abortions.

Soon after the law took effect, the state's Planned Parenthood group filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, claiming the program amounts to viewpoint discrimination by the state.

I wonder if anyone will back me when I sue the state over alma mater discrimination. I'm tired of seeing Penn State alumni license plates everywhere. It makes me feel like a second-class alumnus, and I won't stand for it!

The SC program actually sounds like a great idea, and a healthy one at that. I immediately thought of Thoreau.

Civil Disobedience was Henry David Throeau's frustrated response to the actions of his well-meaning friends who paid his poll tax despite his efforts to challenge, on the court level, the government's use of that tax (this fundamental element of civil disobedience -- your day in court -- is missed by most protesters today who feel wronged when arrested. But I digress...).

The issue of what the government does with your tax dollars is important to virtually everyone, but for those who oppose specific practices on fundamental ethical, moral, or religious principles the issue can be thoroughly vexing.

This program in SC gives people who oppose abortion an opportunity to dictate the use of public funds by specifically targeting money toward organizations which work within their own ethics, and they may proudly display their participation in the program the same way one might support the Philadelphia Zoo or the wildlife refuge -- with a kind of vanity plate.

One statement here strikes me both as ridiculous and frightening:

Longtime Planned Parenthood lawyer Roger Evans also disputes the state's contention that the plates are a form of government speech. Noting that the 4th Circuit found it to be both government and private speech occurring in a public forum, Evans says, "When citizens display the 'Choose Life' plates, they will not be speaking as and for the government program, they will be speaking for themselves."

Those who oppose the plates oppose them on the grounds that they express the beliefs of a private citizen?