Alan Reinach [President, Western Chapter, North American Religious Liberty Association]: "When we were children, we used to have play fights. "I dare you," one would say, only to hear in response, "I double dare you!" Sadly, the culture wars have degenerated into a grown up version of such foolishness. The latest example is in South Carolina, where a Federal Court recently struck down the state's approval of a license plate motto: "I believe" complete with a graphic of the Cross and a stained glass window.

The real story here is not the constitutional issue, which is unremarkable. The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment requires strict government neutrality. The state is not to become a battleground for religious interest groups to fight over, to obtain public endorsement and promotion of its religion or belief. Yet, that is exactly what happened here. One group wanted the state to promote its ideology, "I believe," while another group opposed such abuse of state authority.

No, the tragedy here is that the Federal Court decision [PDF file] will inflame both sides of this culture war to raise more money, and superheat its followers. The good Christian people of South Carolina, and throughout the nation, are being told that the Federal courts are hostile to Christian faith, and that the First Amendment has been abused — that there is no such thing as the separation of church and state. This is simply false. Meanwhile, those of a more secular or postmodern bent are being told to congratulate themselves, and continue supporting the organization that brought the legal challenge, because this is an important victory. Hogwash!

This "important victory" only exacerbates the culture war, and makes finding common ground more difficult, perhaps impossible. It also masks the real culture war struggle that begs for a truce: the conflict between gay rights and religious freedom. The culture wars have become a zero sum game. Increasing conflict between gay rights and religious freedom poses an enormous risk to those religious institutions that live by traditional moral or biblical values regarding human sexuality. Eventually, they may be forced to "convert or die." This is truly tragic. Why can't we craft a society and a legal structure where people of faith and the GLBT community can both live in peace, and have their rights protected? Why does one group have to seek protections at the expense of the other?

The people of South Carolina have not been deprived of opportunities to express their faith on their automobiles. Americans love their cars just as much as they love God and country. Those in South Carolina can express their sentiments, whether "I believe" or "Honk if you love Jesus" on bumper stickers plastered as loudly as they wish. Or they can display their sentiments on license plate frames. Indeed, since South Carolina permits organizations to apply for special license plates, the group sponsoring the "I Believe" plate has now changed its name to "I Believe" so that it can still display "I Believe" on the plate itself.

Now we will see whether those opposing the license plates truly believe in freedom of speech and religion, or whether they are simply hostile to Christian expressions of faith. When South Carolina opens up the license plate to legitimate organizational displays, it creates a limited public forum for citizens to express their free speech. The resulting speech is not government endorsement or promotion of their message, but private speech, which is protected by the same First Amendment that was used to strike down the license plate display when it was "government approved."

I expect the antagonists to complain that even this modest approach violates the separation of church and state — that the state is still endorsing and promoting a religious message by permitting it to be displayed on the license plate. [Because we've heard these arguments before.] They are likely to contend that only secular organizations and messages may enjoy the use of the limited public forum to display messages on license plates. But this argument betrays their hostility to free speech and religion, and more fundamentally, to Christianity. Religious speech is not rendered second class by the First Amendment. If the state chooses to create a limited public forum, it cannot make content based distinctions and approve only secular speech while excluding religious speech.

When we were children, most of the time we were wise enough to figure a way out of the dilemma posed by the dare and double dare, without coming to physical blows. Today, everything winds up in court, the modern equivalent of the duel."