Post offices can't promote religion, judge rules

By The Associated Press
04.25.07
HARTFORD, Conn. — A federal judge has ruled that religion has no place in post offices across the country that are run by churches and other private contractors, citing the separation of church and state in the Constitution.

U.S. District Judge Dominic J. Squatrito, in a case involving a church-run post office in Manchester, ordered the U.S. Postal Service to notify the nearly 5,200 facilities run by contractors that they cannot promote religion through pamphlets, displays or any other materials.

He also told the agency to monitor those offices, which are distinguishable from government-run facilities and employ workers who are not Postal Service employees, to make sure they comply with his ruling.

Postal officials said they could not immediately comment on the ruling in Cooper v. U.S. Postal Service, which is dated April 18.

"We're carefully reviewing the decision and considering our options, including an appeal," said Gerry McKiernan, a Postal Service spokesman at the agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Continues)

I didn't even know there were post offices run by churches.

The only thing they ever try to sell me when I go to the post office is the latest first day cover.

ok....I'm an athiest and even I have an issue here...the guy who filed the lawsuit....he goes into a post office run by a church, and files a lawsuit that they promote religion?? Hello!!!!! McFly!!!!! Gone too far!!!

I see the implication like this. Don't mail parcels in a church, don't sell jesus in the post office. I agree with the ruling 100%. If one wants to find god, there are plenty of places to do that, one need not walk into the confusion between a shipping center and a church.

I don't know....Its like walking into a bar and complaining that there are drunks there...so many places sell stamps...the local supermarket for example. Will they not be able to sell stamps and christmas cards? And remember...this came came to their business...they didn't come knocking on his door...

And yet, on the facade of the PO is just the name of the business, above the Eagle logo of the United States Postal Service. Not implying there is a religious connotation at all, until one enters the facility, from the read of how the building is described outside. There is no indicator one is entering a christian facility that ships parcels, etc...

So as one thinks of church and post office, they customarily think of two different locations. So why would a church invest in a post office? I think that is a valid question, especially with respect to the many other religious investments one could undertake.

Not forgetting the postal carriers that have made the news in the past. Hoarding mail they deemed un-deliverable, according to their personal moral standards. (I'm actually waiting for the postal carriers union to petition for the right to refuse to deliver mail they find morally repugnant, based on their personal articles of faith. Like pharmacists may do now. Imagine one that doesn't believe in extending the life expectancy of the terminally ill. Think grandda has a chance of surviving at that Walgreen's?

I think if one wants to be of service as a church, they don't need to try to introduce their religious articles into what is a federal jurisdiction. It's subtle, but the separation still applies here, I would think.

Pretty scary when the JW’s have a legitimate reason for banging on your door at 8 AM, and when you slam the door on them now they could go postal on you.

Oh no... that's a horrible thought. Some of my best chums at school were JW's, but their parents used to drive my mum nanas.

I don't see that much of a problem with it. If you REALLY knew who owned most of the companies you buy from, you would be shocked. A lot of churches own grocery store chains, soap factories, etc.

Maybe it's something to do with where I live, but there's a big building called "The Post Office" and then there are places like "Mailboxes R US" or something like that. It's not hard to decifer between what is an official government building, and what is a PRIVATLEY owned business.

Ah, but a privately owned business in this case, is as an agent for a federal mail system. (Think why postal employee's get government direct deposit salaries, postal services recognize government holidays and retiree's receive federal pension). So, a privately owned business can not precede access to government service, because it implies government sponsorship of religious articles. And that, by implication, is the same grounds that cause 10 commandments markers to be extricated from government properties.
One wouldn't be able to open a post office in a church either, and for that same reason.

as a ex employee of the post office its even frowned upon to talk of your relgious or political leanings, they feel as a public servant you have to model the ability to embrace diversity.....I spent a day 's seminar having this made crystal clear...

A quote from the article

"He also told the agency to monitor those offices, which are distinguishable from government-run facilities and employ workers who are not Postal Service employees, to make sure they comply with his ruling."
(Italics are mine)

The place is called Sincerely Yours Inc. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that this is NOT the US Post Office. It's just another blow against people being responsible for their own actions.

Sounds just like IamsSon, when you say that.
The rocket scientist bit reminiscent of ThaPhantum. Wild how that works out.


(Excerpt) The Modern Postal Service: Agency or Business?
Until adoption of the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970, the U.S. Postal Service functioned as a regular, tax-supported, agency of the federal government.

According to the laws under which it now operates, the U.S. Postal Service is a semi-independent federal agency, mandated to be revenue-neutral. (Continued at link)



The irresponsibility is the presumption that everyone must endure and tolerate jesus being marketed as if he's the next best thing to postage stamps. Even if it means putting jesus right next to the dispenser for postage stamps.

Ok, so there's a contract post office right next to my house inside a local franchise drug store. So pamphlets for "male enhancement" with your mail are ok I suppose?

Now this ruling came from Manchester which isn't all that small of a town. There are a lot of opportunities to mail your stuff without going to a clearly marked private church to mail stuff.

Now SOME don't have a choice: I know when my grandparents lived in very very rural N.E. Wa. their post office was in the church. Of course the church also contained the only convenience store, a telephone switchboard, and one gas pump. One stop shopping, in one church building for all their needs... I bet they're not going to take the cross off their store/post office/gas station/telehouse/church... Of course, no one but the locals go there, all 42 of them... no one cares if they have to pick their mail up in the church, they're grateful the church is there and willing to handle the mail as well as some other convenience items... no one else wanted to build a building for a store and post office. *shrug*

Interesting how much as a society embracing diversity is the new movement......I'm in favor of it...

lol...would you beleive I'm an athiest?

I don't know....it just seems like this is going to come back and bite us in the back.

I would agree this could be a precursor to something this nation never thought it would see, in it's lifetime. More and more, people are abdicating personal discretion unto legislative process. So that, anymore, one may chance to offend just about anyone and as such face legal reprisals for it. Making government more and more a vehicle wherein litigation precedes non-legal reconciliation of differences between persons.

It's as if we need law to make us civil to one another. Everyone feels they have to be vested in legally defending their space, their rights, their ideas, their faith. Thereby inviting government into more and more of our personal lives, as it is asked to sort out what we , being very sensitive to one another, while not as acutely civil, petition it to our attention.

So more and more laws are made, regulating what can and can not be done, by law. One now has free speech, but yet a job has the right to order you to treatment for saying a word someone else objects to hearing. One now has freedom of the press, yet some can object to a new book pending release, because they think it's content objectionable, and succeed in making the choice for everyone, as to whether or not the title is fit to be read. One can be charged with sexual harassment , if they speak a compliment to someone else. (Same sex sexual harassment laws included) Christmas lights can be a citation offense, if Atheists down the street petition city council for a ban , after christmas. Or, can even petition revocation of such, all together, because it offends their right to be free from religion!

It's an amazing thing that's happening in the bigger picture, than just jesus and stamps, in the OP. We've all heard of Uncle Sam, in this country. But it seems, more and more, as we evolve in so many centers of commerce and technology in the secular realm, that we're growing less and less independent as ourselves. Seeking big brother's aid in defining our individual world, so we'll feel free and comfortable in our own little space. Seeking legal redress of grievances, as we seek to be free now, of being offended, trespassed upon, or made to think differently, by others not us.

911 didn't help the equation. Create a bogeyman, put 'em in the closet and the one selling flashlights, closet deadbolts and bogymen repellent, will make money and power thanks to those who are afraid of bogeyman.

I think, for a nations people to truly know they're free, is to act as if they're first free in the power to think for themselves. More and more I think that's being eroded as a virtue, and lauded instead as a vice. Some people have a name for it already. Liberal, unpatriotic, radical. I like to think it's a matter of spirit and intelligence, to want to live one's personal life, without government intervention at every turn. And while I whole heartedly agree with this decision, I think it's a precursor to something more. Are we really free, when it's government that defines freedom, by law.

Now THAT post I can agree 100% with...

Glad you're impressed! My feet almost slipped off the soapbox, near the end.

i think that they just shouldn't display religious things in there to keep a clear separation.
if you want to post for church events, put a billboard elsewhere.
(or create an billboard for alternate postings that others can put up for equal time)

i think it is unfortunate that both sides couldn't have come up with this simple solution
on their own without involving the courts.

too many times such things become more about ego than about what is right.

There's a little town not far from me. One post office has served the area since 1935. Only last year has any renovation taken place, even going so far as to finally pave their small parking lot and drive. They have a cork board, for public notices to be displayed, near the single service window. I've had occasion to go there for stamps and the like, and there are tacked to it notices of church events, prayer circles, as well as government auctions and local property seizures for past due tax.

At christmas they suspend decorations from the acoustic tile braces, and in the back, on one of the file cabinets, is a tiny fake tree. That's as far as it goes, and it's not a problem. I agree in order to keep the separation federal agents are not entitled to promote one religious ideal. In this particular post office location there's a methodist church on the other side of the street and 2 blocks down. If one wants to pray they don't go to a post office. If they want to buy stamps they don't attend church. I don't think there need be a secular saturation of jesus imagery, for jesus to exist in the heart of the faithful. In fact, I don't think jesus would have claimed to be commercial, at all.

I agree with you there too....my fear now is that someone is going to walk into a drug store to buy stamps, and claim that the condoms hanging there are agaisnt their religious beleifs and the cycle just continues...

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. When the government starts to legislate this kind of morality we're ALL in trouble. I would like to think that people would use common sense, but on the other hand, common sense appears to be in short supply these days.

I think if common sense were the issue in this matter, a private business would know better than to decorate it's interior, as a federal postal agent, as if it's a retail for christ. It's an insult actually to imagine jesus need be sold along with next day shipping. In this matter, it's not necessarily government interfering in the secular, but rather federal policy reiterating the separation of powers. It might be a private business, but when it contracts as an agent of a federal artery, in this case postal services, it is subject to the terms and conditions thereof.

As for the analogy about condoms and a conservatives objection going full bore to the courts, they would lose! It's called, constraint of trade and is illegal. Retail establishments are public and access to, is discretionary. If one does not like to see condoms behind the counter at the pharmacy department, they need not look, or perhaps they need grow up and realize the sight of a box of Trojans wont damn them to hell. While those condoms do assist in preventing the damnation to the hell of AIDS/HIV and unwanted pregnancy.

I don't know what one of these religious post offices looks like inside... anyone care to describe one for me?

Happy to. From the OP: Inside, the facility has evangelical displays, including posters, advertisements and artwork. One of the displays is about Jesus Christ and invites customers to submit a request if they "need a prayer in their lives."

The office has prayer cards and an advertisement for World-Wide Lighthouse Missions, an organization run by the Full Gospel Interdenominational Church that receives profits from the post office. There is a television monitor for church-related religious videos.

What about the staff? Do they just sell the stamps or do they actively encourage you to look at the religious advertising, and fill out a prayer card? I guess what I'm trying to imagine is how religious these places are... in your face, or moderately, or just a bit, if you see what I mean. I don't think we have anything like this in the UK.

But you're still talking about something that's dicey. My corner drug store is a Federal Postal Agent. It's just a counter inside the store in the gift department. Ok, so are we going to establish law that says they have to move the counter elsewhere because there are holiday greeting cards, gift style Bibles and cross shaped ornaments, and cheap rosaries, are sold in the gift section where the postal counter is? I dunno, sounds a little silly. I suppose you could move the postal counter to the section where the Depends are kept, but you're still only 15 steps from the Christmas decorations and Jesus greeting cards. I think the answer here is common sense.

Now if you put a Federal Post in a Christian book store, that I would probably say "whoa, no go mister, no can do" and the postal service should have known better than to let that happen in the first place.

The whole thing needs to be addressed on a case by case basis. It's that simple.

As this case proves, it was addressed as a case. If you read the article you'll note that the shipping center was opened by a church.