{"id":5646,"date":"2013-06-17T10:24:13","date_gmt":"2013-06-17T16:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5646"},"modified":"2013-06-17T10:24:13","modified_gmt":"2013-06-17T16:24:13","slug":"non-christian-license-plate-prompts-oklahoma-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5646","title":{"rendered":"‘Non-Christian’ License Plate Prompts Oklahoma Lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"An Oklahoma court has cleared the way for Methodist clergyman Keith Cressman to sue the state over his objection to\u00a0 imagery on that state’s license plate.<\/a><\/p>\n

The new license plates carry a photo of a statue called “Prayer for Rain,” of an Apache man shooting an arrow into the sky.<\/p>\n

His 2011 lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City seeks a court order allowing him either to cover up the image on his plates or to get a personalized plate for the same cost as a standard license plate.<\/p>\n

“Mr. Cressman’s (lawsuit) states a plausible compelled speech claim,” the appellate judges wrote Tuesday in a 39-page decision, reversing Judge Joe Heaton’s dismissal of the lawsuit. “He has alleged sufficient facts to suggest that the ‘Sacred Rain Arrow’ image on the standard Oklahoma license plate conveys a particularized message that others are likely to understand and to which he objects.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oklahoma has used American Indian imagery on license plates before, but something about this one evidently pushed the Rev. Cressman’s buttons.<\/p>\n

Sigh. Maybe they should make a plain black and white plate for militant monotheists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Oklahoma court has cleared the way for Methodist clergyman Keith Cressman to sue the state over his objection to\u00a0 imagery on that state’s license plate. The new license plates carry a photo of a statue called “Prayer for Rain,” of an Apache man shooting an arrow into the sky. His 2011 lawsuit in U.S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,24,142],"class_list":["post-5646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-religion","tag-christianity","tag-monotheism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1t4","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1085,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1085","url_meta":{"origin":5646,"position":0},"title":"Gallimaufry in Traffic","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 21, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00b6 So M. and I are in traffic behind a Cadillac SRX with the vanity license plate \"S-N-M\" and a custom-painted \"Sanguine Addiction\" above the license-plate holder. That's a Colorado metal band, but the driver did not look like any of the musicians. Here is what we were arguing about:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","block_context":{"text":"blogging","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":770,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=770","url_meta":{"origin":5646,"position":1},"title":"Pagan Studies and paper management","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 25, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The Capitol as it looked on my last morning's walk to the AAR-SBL meeting.Coming home from the American Academy of Religion-Society for Biblical Literature meeting means an enormous amount of \"paper management.\" Books, catalogs, receipts, business cards, mysterious scribbled notes, sample copies of journals, maps, newspaper clippings--all are dumped on\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5293,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5293","url_meta":{"origin":5646,"position":2},"title":"Publisher Drops Suits Against Blogging Librarian","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 5, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"A\u00a0 university librarian who described Edwin Mellen Press on his blog as \"dubious\" and as offering \"second-class scholarship\" was sued in turn by the press, but the lawsuit has now been dropped. The lawsuits inspired scholars from around North America to rally behind Askey. Created by Martha Reineke, a professor\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","block_context":{"text":"blogging","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10615,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10615","url_meta":{"origin":5646,"position":3},"title":"Secrets of the Gundestrup Cauldron","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 10, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"The Gundestrop Cauldron is one of the best-known Pagan artworks from Iron Age Europe. You can even buy inexpensive replicas.((Just for information \u2014 I get no commission on this,\u00a0 and I see that it is out of stock at the moment anyway.)) What the reproductions will not have are the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/balkancelts.files.wordpress.com\/2016\/09\/gundestrup.jpg?w=350&h=200&crop=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/balkancelts.files.wordpress.com\/2016\/09\/gundestrup.jpg?w=350&h=200&crop=1 1x, https:\/\/balkancelts.files.wordpress.com\/2016\/09\/gundestrup.jpg?w=525&h=300&crop=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2736,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2736","url_meta":{"origin":5646,"position":4},"title":"Lawyers Comment on the Pagan Prison Chaplain Case","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 5, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Of all the discussions of the prisoner \"free exercise of religion\" issue that produced a lawsuit brought by California volunteer Pagan prison chaplain Patrick McCollum, I recommend that you read\u00a0 Wiccan lawyer Hecate Demetersdatter's explanation. The appeals court has not decided on the rightness or wrongness of the basic question,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1039,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1039","url_meta":{"origin":5646,"position":5},"title":"Casual Labor at the New Age Trade Show","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"So as I was saying, I briefly visited the INATS West show yesterday, in the capacity of day labor to help the Zells take down their booth on its last afternoon.(You sit on the curb in front of the liquor store until a guy wearing a wizard's hat and driving\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5646"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5648,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5646\/revisions\/5648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}