A federal judge has ruled that post offices across the country that are run by churches and other organizations cannot promote religion through displays or other promotional materials.
In a decision involving a church-run post office in downtown Manchester, the judge sided with a town resident who said his First Amendment rights were violated by the Christian displays.
The religious displays “put the church’s beliefs front and center, out for the public to see, endorsing the church’s form of Christianity and seeking outsiders to join the church in its mission,” U.S. District Court Judge Dominic J. Squatrito wrote in a decision handed down last week.
The displays “violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment,” Squatrito wrote.
According to court documents, the court found that the contract postal unit run by Sincerely Yours Inc., “is so entwined with the Postal Service that the [contract postal unit's] actions may be considered the actions of the Postal Service.”
According to the article, a contract postal office should be kept separate from the main business or function in the building. When someone walks in the building there should be an obvious break between the two operations.
What needs to be determined in the Sincerely Yours Inc. case is just how separate were the operations?
Also according to the article, it was not an atheist that brought Sincerely Yours Inc. to court. It was a person of the jewish faith.
I guess the jews are just as intolerant to the christians as atheists.
#15 – joshua,
You asked, “Why are you brave souls so afraid of religious symbols if they are just superstition as you claim?”
My answer is that I do not fear such symbology. I fear religion and its followers. I fear because of the crussades, the inquisition, abortion clinic bombings, doctor shootings, jihad, and all other killing in the name of religion.
We are a violent species. We kill for all sorts of ideology, including non-religious ones, such as communism. Religion simply provides one more way that humans divide Us from Them. It is always OK, often pre-ordained by a mythical sky spirit, to kill Them.
We must realize instead of embracing divisive and sectarian ideologies that we are all Us. There is no Them. Humans went through a bottle neck about 70-80,000 years ago. There were only about 3-7,000 humans on the planet at the time. We are thus all very closely related. We are all cousins or closer. We have an incredibly small gene pool.
So, when I am subjected to godvertisements for a sectarian, divisive, and violent religion in government facilities in a country founded upon the principals of not establishing a national religion, I am offended.
I don’t care if the contract stations are privately owned. I don’t think ANY business that is not itself a religion (because let’s face it, religions are businesses and that’s all they are) should be displaying or promoting religious ideas to it’s customers.
It is not the place of a business owner or manager to take it upon himself to proselytize to his customers.
For example, when I go to the dentist and sit in that chair, I should not have to be subjected to religious programming on the TV placed unavoidably in my field of vision and listen to the “go god” banter of the dentist and dental assistant. I came to get my teeth worked on, not to go to church!
#13 – Geeze… Listen here Union Jack
, we wouldn’t have this Bible Thumper infestation if you had banished your damn Puritans to some remote island instead of sending them to the New World.
Okay, so I read through the article and the posts here. I don’t see anywhere where it said whether or not they receive government money. Did I just miss it?
If they do receive government funds, then they shouldn’t have any religious message forced upon their clients. If they do not receive any of my tax money, then they should be able to do what they want. It is the right of every individual to choose not to patronize any private business for any reason.
For the record, I’m an atheist.
Shawn
Which cartoon? Link seems to be a ‘main page’.
Frazlsnatz…. use the date selector for 08/02/05…
J/P=?
Humans went through a bottle neck about 70-80,000 years ago. There were only about 3-7,000 humans on the planet at the time. We are thus all very closely related. We are all cousins or closer. We have an incredibly small gene pool.
But.. I thought the Earth was only 6,000 years old?
Trivia question: Xians say we are all descended from Adam and Eve, but there’s a more recent ‘bottleneck’ according to the Bible. Can you ID the event? and the family?
J/P=?
#27 – John Paradox,
Noah and his little ark with 2 of each of the 10,000,000 species on the planet, right? (Oh yeah, don’t forget, 7 pairs each for the kosher animals.) Pew that place must’ve stank. And what about enough food for all of the animals?
I still like the far side comic of Noah saying, “Well, so much for the unicorns. From now on, all carnivores will be confined to C deck.”
But actually, isn’t it all members of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic religion who go by the Adam and Eve thing? It’s certainly all of the Judeo-Christian subset.
Also, my version of the story:
Adam and Eve had two sons. The end.
21. “I guess the jews are just as intolerant to the christians as atheists.”
You cram religious crap down our throats and yet you claim we’re intolerant? Oh yeah, we’re the bad guys. The fact that you are completely intolerant of any other faith or belief system is completely irrelevant.
I’m really looking forward to the day when religion is mandated in public schools and your kids are forced to read from the Koran and pray to the east. I’ll be laughing so hard I’ll probably shit my pants. But it’ll be worth it.
Forgot who said it but – “fundamentatheist” is word Kurt Vonnegut would have had fun with.
I don’t care if a private post office that gets no government subsidy displays religious crap on the walls. Euro snobs may think the American fixation on separation of church and state is laughable and low-class, but they’ve never seen personally how violent and intolerant those faux “Christians” can get when they think they have the upper hand. Maybe that’s why in their superiority they’re allowing fundamentalist Muslims to dictate so much of their public policy. I don’t wish them ill, but if they keep the way they’re going I expect sometime to have occasion to say “I told you so.”
30. “I don’t care if a private post office that gets no government subsidy displays religious crap on the walls. ”
You apparently don’t know this, but there really is no such thing as a private post office. The USPS has a legally mandated monopoly on the mail service. If you want to mail a letter, you have to use the USPS. You want to receive mail? You have to use the USPS. You ever wonder why FedEx doesn’t leave packages or envelopes in your mail box? it’s against the law. Only the USPS can leave stuff in your mail box.
If Wal-Mart decided to push a Christian agenda, I wouldn’t care. I could always go to K-Mart or Meijer, etc. But when a government mandated monopoly starts pushing an agenda, that’s when I do care.
There’s two ways to enable tolerance for other people’s points of view. One way is to include everyone’s view. But that’s impractical. The other way is to make it neutral to points of few. That’s what the separation of church and state is all about. We can’t please everyone, so the best we can do is to not favor anyone.
Under this system if you want to buy stamps, you’re free to do so without having anything crammed down your throat. If you want to pray to Jesus, you are free to go to the church or closet of your choice.
The only people who are not happy with this system are those intolerant souls who are not happy unless they’re cramming their beliefs down someone’s throat. Yep, I’m talking about Muslims and Christians.
Ironically, they are the first to complain about sex or violence on TV. For some reason they never want anything unpleasant crammed down their throats. Probably sexual frustration, I’d guess.
Could DV put the name of the commenter at the top, instead of the bottom of the comment? If I had realized that long, vacuous screed was by Joshua, I could have anticipated it would be worthless and skipped it.
As J-F pointed out, delivery of mail is a function of federal government, as is regulation of transportation and commerce in general. I am not surprised that the Europeans posting to the thread have no grasp of the U.S. Constitution, however it is kind of embarrassing that so few Americans have taken time to familiarize themselves with this relatively short document.
One of the striking things about this episode is the selfishness of the attitude expressed by the denomination operating the post office. If it had any real sense of Christian charity, it would be pleased to provide a needed service without the proselytizing.
#31 & 32,
Well written, I totally agree.
J-F, good argument.
Podesta, I loved your first paragraph, it gave me a good chuckle.