SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 29 (UPI) -- A U.S. appeals court ruled that the Arizona License Plate Commission violated the First Amendment by banning "Choose Life" as a license plate slogan.
U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Tallman, writing for a unanimous three-judge panel in San Francisco, said that the commission clearly acted "based on the nature of the message," the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Other groups had been allowed to select their own messages for specialty license plates.
The appeals decision was announced Monday.
The Arizona Life Coalition is part of a national effort to get "Choose Life" state license plates.
Allowing anti- and pro-abortion rights groups to take their fight to the license plates has been controversial for several years and has had mixed results in the courts, the Chronicle said. In 2003, a federal appeals court threw out a South Carolina law allowing anti-abortion plates because it didn't extend to pro-abortion rights plates but another court upheld a similar law in Tennessee three years later.
In Arizona, the commission had allowed environmental groups and police and firefighter unions to have their own license plates carrying messages pushing their causes.
