Eideard

Some folks will never learn

The Texas Department of Motor Vehicles rejected a specialty license plate with the Confederate flag Thursday.

The commissioners, all appointed by Republican Gov. Rick Perry, voted unanimously against issuing the plate, the San Antonio Express-News reported. The vote came two weeks after Perry came out against the plate, saying the state doesn’t need “to scrape that wound again.”

The plate would have shown the so-called Confederate battle flag, the flag most commonly associated with the short-lived Confederate States of America. State Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, who sponsored the plate with his agency, said it would honor “the soldiers, not the politicians.”

African-American groups opposed the plate. Gary Bledsoe, head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in the state, said approving the plate would hurt Texas.

“This is the wrong thing to do,” Bledsoe said. “We don’t want others to look at Texas with scorn and ridicule and think that we are a bunch of country bumpkins.”

Cripes. We’re going to lose all our favorite stereotypes of dumb rednecks at this rate.

First Mississippi fails at ordering the government to interfere with women’s reproductive rights — now, this! I wonder if when Rick Perry gets back home from playing at being a national-class buffoon he’ll change things round and restore his original plan to revive the Confederacy.

Next up…

If you want Jesus on your license plate, the Florida Senate is looking out for you.

Religious specialty plates offered by Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Valrico, and Sen. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando, made it onto a bill Friday even though many members had not seen images of those plates and none were produced for the debate.

Siplin didn’t mince words when asked what his ”Trinity” plate looks like, saying: “It has a picture of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

Storms’ ”I Believe” plate would benefit Faith in Teaching, an Orlando company that funds faith-based programs at schools. The design features a cross over a stained-glass window…

”The issue is whether the state of Florida ought to be producing license plates with religious images on them,” said Sen. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, “and I don’t believe that we should.”

Before the day was over, the Anti-Defamation League and the ACLU registered opposition, and across the hall in the House, proposals for the same plates were withdrawn from legislation.

Florida has more than 100 specialty plates with several new ones proposed this year.

Separation of church from state is always the issue – except when opportunist political hacks are trying to claw a few more votes.