(LifeSiteNews) — Editor’s note: The following piece is satire.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

National Day of Celebration for New Martyr Reginald Auto

Today in the United States of Amorica, the Head of the Amorican Institute of Health, Xavier Cerberus, announced a National Day of Celebration in honor of the New Martyr Reginald Auto who gave his life to pursue his vision of self-determination as an automobile. Born in a strip parlor in New Pork City in 2007 after having been transported across the Maxican border from his native Vanezuela by members of the Trendy Aragua Gang and placed in the care of relatives by the Amorican Institute of Health, Reginald conceived his vision of himself as an automobile while a student in kindergarten.  

As a fourth-grade student, Reginald successfully changed his surname from Arturo to Auto when the Amorican Civil Liberties Union took up his cause as the first minor to pursue his right to be identified as an automobile, in keeping with the Amorican Supreme Court’s Ogerfeld decision which enshrined the right of all Amoricans to determine their own identity. “The Amorican Constitution promises liberty to all,” the Court had declared, “a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity.”

After changing his surname from Arturo to Auto, Reginald became the first student in Amorican history to receive official recognition as an automobile by the state of New Pork and by the local Superintendent of Schools. Auto was officially registered as an automobile in the State of New Pork, granted an inspection sticker, allowed to forego clothing in favor of automobile wax, and awarded a reserved parking place in his school’s indoor parking garage. 

When school authorities denied Auto’s demand to be served gasoline in the school cafeteria, the Amorican Civil Liberties Union successfully sued the school board for infringing on Auto’s constitutional rights and forced the school to install a gasoline pump in the school cafeteria for Auto and other students self-identifying as automobiles. After consuming his first meal of gasoline in the school cafeteria, which Xavier Cerberus has dubbed Auto’s “last supper,” Auto was taken to the hospital where he died a few hours later.  

In his eulogy for Auto, Cerberus excoriated critics of the state and school authorities and praised Auto as a modern hero who did not allow anything or anyone to stand in the way of his own self-determination.