USPS – Postal services offer in church
To provide Americans with greater convenience, the U.S. Postal Service has contracts nationwide with private operators who offer postal services at any hour.
The outlets are typically at drug stores, convenience stores, supermarkets and colleges, and they offer evening, weekend and holiday hours.
That convenience is worthwhile. But theres a catch.
The U.S. Postal Service also has made deals with several churches to operate contract postal units. One operated by the Full Gospel Interdenominational Church in Manchester, N.H., called Sincerely Yours Inc., is full of evangelical Christian displays, including posters, advertisements, artwork and photography.
For example, to the right of the postal counter, a large religious display informs customers about Jesus Christ and invites them to submit a prayer card if they need prayer in their lives. To the left of the postal counter, a television monitor plays church-related religious videos for customers waiting in line.
And this is the only post office in the downtown area, leaving no doubt that a reasonable person would see the displays as an endorsement of that church and its evangelical mission.
The U.S. Constitution includes postal services, which have been a traditional government function. On that basis, the Postal Service needs to ensure that churches arent using contract post offices to proselytize and entangle government in promoting religion.
U.S. District Court Judge Dominic J. Squatrito recently put the kibosh on the church displays in Manchester. Those displays, he wrote, put the churchs beliefs front and center, out for the public to see, endorsing Christianity and recruiting outsiders to join the church in its mission.
The judge ordered the Postal Service to tell all contract postal units that in providing postal services for the government, they shall not act in a manner that proselytizes or advances religion and to monitor compliance. He ordered the church to remove displays in the contract postal unit.
Theres nothing wrong with a church exhibiting religious displays but not while it conducts duties for the Postal Service, in other words, for the U.S. government.
