If the N.C. General Assembly wants a war of ideas on the road, it needs to at least make it a two-way street. But recent legislation allowing the state to produce a number of specialized license plates is making the conversation one-sided by offering North Carolina drivers the option of a pro-life plate, but not a pro-choice one.
This legislation borders on state-sponsored censorship, steers revenue toward organizations supporting the plates’ respective causes — and seems especially suspicious given the anti-abortion sentiment among current legislators.
Under this legislation, plates featuring the phrase “Choose Life” will be available to drivers for an additional fee of $25. But the state won’t produce the plates until Dec. 1, the first day of hearings between the state and the American Civil Liberties Union, which has sued on First Amendment grounds.
It’s questionable whether this kind of advocacy even has a place on state-issued license plates. Regardless, the tactics and language surrounding this bill’s passage raise serious concerns about legislators’ respect for the first right afforded under the Bill of Rights.
Rep. Mitch Gillespie (R-Burke) made sure in his sponsorship of the bill that the pro-choice side would not have its day on the road. He used all the Machiavellian shrewdness he could muster to bully, elbow and threaten his way into ensuring that nothing but a bumper sticker advocate for the right women have, at least for now, to choose to have an abortion.
Unfortunately, Gillespie’s shrewdness appears to be a bit limited. He has shown that he either doesn’t understand or doesn’t respect his duty, as a representative, to preserve the rights of his constituents. A more shrewd politician might have been able to pull this off — co-opting an uncontroversial topic and turning it into an inflammatory all-or-nothing debate rife with posturing and exaggeration — but he has, perhaps unwittingly, shown a narrow understanding of freedom of speech.
Gillespie explained his insistence that there be no pro-life option, saying, “That was my legislation, and I didn’t want it attached to my name and bill.” Gillespie is confounding government speech with a government forum for private speech. The sense of ownership he claims over this bill is damning, as it shows he thinks he has the right to limit private speech.
Here’s the problem: legislation doesn’t belong to anyone, not even its sponsor. The rights it affords belong to the state and its betterment. But Gillespie’s imagined prerogative to decree the government’s position on abortion isn’t for anyone’s betterment.
This isn’t just a matter of government speech. It is a government-regulated forum for private speech. Therefore, it cannot limit the discourse. Only allowing one side to voice its opinion in this forum is censorship.
