The Children First Foundation was notified last Friday that the New Jersey "Choose Life" License Plate won an important legal battle in federal court which "ruled in (CFF's) favor, and denied the state's second attempt at petitioning this case be thrown out of court," according to Jeff Shafer, CFF's lead attorney and Senior Legal Counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund.
This was great news for CFF Co-Founders, Dr. Elizabeth Rex and her husband, Charles Rex, a concert violinist with the New York Philharmonic, who have been working non-stop on the approval of the New Jersey "Choose Life" License Plate since December, 2002. Dr. Rex worked closely with the Special Plate Unit of the MVC in Trenton to create a community organizational specialty plate for CFF that was carefully designed to promote adoption. The MVC had already approved specialty plates for many diverse organizations including the Teamsters, a politically-oriented labor union; the Knights of Columbus, a religious organization for Catholics; the Masons, Telephone Pioneers, Square Dancers and many more. Several of the previously approved plates carried slogans and advocacy phrases like "Drive Out Hunger," "Columbianism," "Safe Cop," "Leatherneck," "Freemason," etc.
When CFF's protoplate was manufactured and sent to for its final approval, however, the words "Choose Life" in CFF's copyrighted corporate logo were singled out for rejection by Governor McGreevey's Chief Administrator at the MVC, Ms. Diane Legreide. According to the Bergen Record, Ms. Legreide said she had consulted the entire matter with Attorney General Peter Harvey, another Governor McGreevey appointee, who fully supported her decision. Thankfully, the Alliance Defense Fund offered to represent The Children First Foundation and to defend their civil liberties from what appeared to be an egregious case of viewpoint discrimination by the State's highest government officials.
"CFF's second victory in federal court should send a strong message that the State should stop wasting taxpayers' money trying to defend government censorship and discrimination," commented Dan Clark, CFF's Executive Director and an attorney. Currently over two thousand CFF supporters in New Jersey are eagerly awaiting the approval of the New Jersey "Choose Life" plate because they understand that women often need financial and moral support in order to choose life and consider adoption for a crisis pregnancy. "This is truly a great cause that everyone can and should support in New Jersey," Mr. Clark added. "CFF and our many supporters will continue to promote this important message and fight for the New Jersey "Choose Life" plate until we get it."
Source: NJ Choose Life Press Release
