Plate Debate: Political motorists. (Citings)."SINCE WHEN HAS protecting, honoring, and celebrating a freedom that we have become a controversial statement?" asks Florida state Rep. Ken Littlefield, a Republican.He's introduced a bill to add a license plate for gun lovers to the roster of more than 50 specialty tags offered by the Sunshine State. His design, picturing an armed minuteman minuteman Colonial soldier of the American Revolution. Minutemen were first organized in Massachusetts in September 1774, when revolutionary leaders sought to eliminate Tories, or British sympathizers, from the militia by replacing all officers. and the slogan A slogan is a memorable motto or phrase used in a political, commercial, religious and other context as a repetitive expression of an idea or purpose. Slogans vary from the written and the visual to the chanted and the vulgar. "Protect the Second Amendment," would raise funds for school gun-safety programs. Or as Littlefield puts it, classes that would "instill in·still v. To pour in drop by drop. in  stil·la tion n. again in our children the value and the sanctity of human life"--seemingly a tall order for a humble license plate program. Rhetoric aside, the plate's message is controversial, and anti-gun rights activists have complained it would imply the state had endorsed one side of a political issue. But it wouldn't be the first or most contentious message to grace Florida tags. Between August 2000 and 2001,25,126 Floridians have shelled out $20 apiece a·piece adv. To or for each one; each: There is enough bread for everyone to have two slices apiece. [Middle English a pece : a, a; see a for a "Choose Life" plate, the proceeds of which go to pro- adoption family planning clinics family planning clinic n → clínica de planificación familiar family planning clinic n → centre m de planning familial that don't offer abortions. That plate has so far survived on ongoing First Amendment challenge brought to the courts by the National Organization for Women, which has argued that it blurs the church-state boundary since "choose life" comes from a Bible verse in Deuteronomy. (That same argument successfully shot down a similar plate program in Lousisiana.) Specialty plates, whose numbers are ballooning ballooning Flying in a balloon in competition or for recreation. Sport ballooning began in the early 20th century and became popular in the 1960s. The balloons used are of lightweight synthetic materials (e.g. in most states, promise to keep courts busy for years. But hardly anyone has fussed about a more practical concern: Some of the more elaborate plate designs make it difficult to read the tag numbers. |
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