ARIZONA: Specialty “In God We Trust” License Plate Is Secretly Funding Anti-LGBT Christian Hate Group

Hemant Mehta reports at The Friendly Atheist:

If you want to buy the specialty “In God We Trust” license plate in Arizona, the state says that $17 of your $25 annual fee “goes to promote the national motto ‘In God We Trust’, 1st amendment rights and the heritage of this state and nation.”

What the state doesn’t tell anyone publicly is that the $17 is sent to Alliance Defending Freedom, the Christian Right organization that is labeled a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center. In fact, more than a million dollars has been given to the anti-LGBTQ group since the plate was first established in 2008.

State Sen. Juan Mendez, one of the few openly atheist state senators in the country, has now proposed a bill, SB 1462, that would create a public list of groups that benefit from those specialty plates. He wants to make everything transparent.

Hit the link for more.

Enter State Sen. Juan Mendez (@mendezforaz). He just introduced a bill that would make all of this transparent. The state would have to publicize where the specialty plate money is going and how much. No more hiding.

— Hemant Mehta (@hemantmehta) February 6, 2019

Even with transparency, though, Mendez can’t single-handedly stop the IGWT plate money from going to ADF… so he filed ANOTHER bill to work around that problem… by eliminating the “In God We Trust” plate from the program altogether. Sneaky!

— Hemant Mehta (@hemantmehta) February 6, 2019