In April, The Burning Taper reported on an attempt in Florida to introduce state license plates with a Christian cross and the words "I Believe."The measure failed in the legislature.
But like "Whack-A-Mole," the idea popped up somewhere else. Flying below the radar until Thursday, the idea became law in South Carolina as Republican Gov. Mark Sanford let it take effect without his signature. The S.C. tag uses the exact same design as the proposed Florida tag did, with a Christian cross superimposed onto a stained glass window, proving (not that it was any secret) there is a particular organization behind the movement, namely, a fundamentalist Christian group known as "Faith in Teaching" based in Miami, Fla.
Prior to the Christian-themed license tag's approval, South Carolina politicians apparently learned a lesson from the tag's failure in Florida, and hatched an idea to create a tag for "atheists" so they could say, "See? We let everyone have a voice."
The "tag for atheists" consists of a white tag sporting an American flag, with the motto "In Reason We Trust." While it might make a great tag for Freemasons and fans of The Enlightenment, I'd hardly say that the state should be speaking for atheists as if they all "believed" or "trusted" in Reason. Being an atheist means not believing in a god, not that you believe in something other than a god. Even the name of photo of the S.C. "atheist" tag — "humanist.jpg" — shows its very existence is just sleight of hand and has nothing to do with atheism, as "[humanism] is generally compatible with atheism and agnosticism but doesn't require either of these," according to Wikipedia.
Just as Freemasonry has devolved into a "my version is better than your version" argument, so has our entire nation. Once a melting pot with the motto "E Pluribus Unum," which means "Out of Many, One," the United States of America has become divided and subdivided into cliques, sects, denominations, political parties, teams (and fans of teams) and gangs, all loudly, shrilly shouting "My way is the right way, and yours isn't!"
Out of One, we have again become Many.
Masons | E Pluribus Unum | Florida Politics | Freemasonry | South Carolina Politics | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com
