A federal judge halted South Carolina’s plans to offer Christian-themed license plates last week, ruling that to do so would constitute state-sponsored religious preference, reports The State.

According to Religion Dispatches, the concern over the legality of the plates mostly has to do with process. Private organizations can offer specialty plates through the DMV, and do, like one for the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry inscribed with the words “In Reason We Trust.” Another privately-produced (and currently available) plate sports an anti-abortion message, notes Associated Baptist Press. Since the "I Believe" licenses were sponsored by the state legislature, however, they were subject to legal challenge. Take a look at this Utne blog from last summer, which explores the uproar around the case in more depth.

South Carolina is not the only state to debate religious plates—Florida and Indiana have courted controversy after attempting to approve similar designs. Check out Stephen Colbert’s hilarious response to Florida’s most recent attempt:

A battle has erupted over religious freedom in South Carolina. Earlier this year, the state’s general assembly voted unanimously to begin producing license plates bearing the phrase “I Believe” and decorated with an image of a yellow cross superimposed over a stained-glass window. Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer even offered to pay for the plates’ production out of his own pocket.

Last month, Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed a lawsuit alleging that the plate constituted a governmental endorsement of one religion over all others, and a clear violation of the First Amendment.

While many church-and-state cases draw a distinction between secular and religious people, this case is particularly compelling because much of the license-plate criticism has come from inside the religious community. Plaintiffs against the plates include a rabbi, the American Hindu Foundation, and three ministers, among them the Rev. Dr. Neal Jones, who penned a guest editorial in the State arguing that while “America is a nation of Christians, we are not a Christian nation.” Despite the barrage of hostile email received by Americans United—accusing the organization’s members of being nonbeilevers and condemning them to hell (among other nasty epithets)—religious people, in this case, are some of the loudest voices championing the separation between church and state.