{"id":1395,"date":"2009-05-04T17:51:53","date_gmt":"2009-05-04T17:51:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2009\/05\/bill-to-allow-jesus-license-pl.php"},"modified":"2009-05-04T17:51:53","modified_gmt":"2009-05-04T17:51:53","slug":"bill-to-allow-jesus-license-pl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/05\/bill-to-allow-jesus-license-pl","title":{"rendered":"Bill to Allow Jesus License Plates in Fla. Dies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(RNS) Moves to create two Florida license plates with images of a crucified Jesus on one, and a stained glass window and cross on another, have died in the Florida legislature.<br \/>\nBoth plates had come under blistering criticism from Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the American Civil Liberties Union. The Associated Press reported that bills to create the plates died at the end of the regular legislative session on Friday (May 1).<br \/>\nState Sen. Gary Siplin, an Orlando Democrat, had proposed the plate with &#8220;a picture of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.&#8221; The plate portrayed an image of Jesus&#8217; head lowered under the weight of a crown of thorns.<br \/>\nSiplin was not available Monday for comment.<br \/>\nGov. Charlie Crist, a Republican, had earlier said he would support the plate. &#8220;If they (critics) don&#8217;t want one, they don&#8217;t have to buy one,&#8221; Crist told The St. Petersburg Times.<br \/>\nFlorida drivers are able to purchase more than 100 specialized license plates. Proceeds, which normally run between $15 and $25, support various causes and groups.<br \/>\nThe other plate, proposed by state Sen. Ronda Storms, a Republican from Brandon, would have depicted a stained glass window, cross and the words &#8220;I Believe.&#8221; A district court has temporarily halted the production of similar plates in South Carolina.<br \/>\n&#8220;License plates are not a license for the government to prefer one religion over others,&#8221; said the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of the Washington-based Americans United. &#8220;I&#8217;m glad the legislature in Florida seems to have finally realized that.&#8221;<br \/>\n<em>By Kevin Eckstrom<br \/>\nCopyright 2009 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(RNS) Moves to create two Florida license plates with images of a crucified Jesus on one, and a stained glass window and cross on another, have died in the Florida legislature. Both plates had come under blistering criticism from Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the American Civil Liberties Union. The Associated&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Bill to Allow Jesus License Plates in Fla. Dies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/05\/bill-to-allow-jesus-license-pl\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bill to Allow Jesus License Plates in Fla. Dies\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"(RNS) Moves to create two Florida license plates with images of a crucified Jesus on one, and a stained glass window and cross on another, have died in the Florida legislature. Both plates had come under blistering criticism from Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the American Civil Liberties Union. The Associated&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/05\/bill-to-allow-jesus-license-pl\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-05-04T17:51:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"nsymmonds\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Bill to Allow Jesus License Plates in Fla. Dies","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/05\/bill-to-allow-jesus-license-pl","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Bill to Allow Jesus License Plates in Fla. Dies","og_description":"(RNS) Moves to create two Florida license plates with images of a crucified Jesus on one, and a stained glass window and cross on another, have died in the Florida legislature. Both plates had come under blistering criticism from Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the American Civil Liberties Union. The Associated&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/05\/bill-to-allow-jesus-license-pl","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2009-05-04T17:51:53+00:00","author":"nsymmonds","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/05\/bill-to-allow-jesus-license-pl","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/05\/bill-to-allow-jesus-license-pl","name":"Bill to Allow Jesus License Plates in Fla. Dies","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-05-04T17:51:53+00:00","dateModified":"2009-05-04T17:51:53+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/05\/bill-to-allow-jesus-license-pl#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/05\/bill-to-allow-jesus-license-pl"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/05\/bill-to-allow-jesus-license-pl#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Bill to Allow Jesus License Plates in Fla. Dies"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2","name":"nsymmonds","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","caption":"nsymmonds"},"description":"Nicole Symmonds is Beliefnet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Prayer editor and also covers Christianity. A New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by tenure, Nicole graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She moved to NY to pursue a career in journalism which started at In Style magazine. There she learned the ropes of magazine reporting, researching, and writing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand became exponentially more stylish. But what seemed like a deep interest in fashion and entertainment would soon be revealed as merely the vehicle that moved her closer to discovering her purpose, writing and covering matters of the Christian faith. While in her purpose-driven vehicle she can be found traveling between Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens for life, work and worship, respectively. From fashion to faith and the journey isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t over yet\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/nsymmonds"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1395\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}