Posted on 03/22/2003 12:50:50 PM PST by raygun
Postage Stamp honoring Muslim holidays to be re-issued
The watchword for the day is vigilance.
The following story ran in the Houston Chronicle Oct 2002:
What is good for the U.S. Mint is evidently not acceptable to the U.S. Postal Service.
A post office in Montgomery north of Houston recently learned that it had to remove a framed poster of the national motto "In God We Trust" because it violates postal regulations.
The donated 16-by-20-inch poster, which is matted and secured in a gold frame, displays "In God We Trust" in large white letters over the American flag colors. It states at the bottom that the "national motto was approved by Congress and President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956."
Retired chemical engineer Frank P. Williamson spent $3,000 purchasing 300 of the posters, had them framed, and then donated them to city halls, schools, libraries, police stations and post offices across Montgomery County, where they've hung since this summer.
Cut and Shoot postmistress Ida Miera vowed Wednesday that the poster, which still hangs in her post office and two others in the county, will come down "over my dead body."
The town of Montgomery seemed like a particularly logical place for the poster, Williamson said, because the historic town, population 486, was home to Texas' first secretary of state who designed Texas' Lone Star flag.
"After the terrorist attacks on 9/11, I thought it would be good to promote our national motto. I know that the only reason we've been successful in the past is that our forefathers put their trust in God way back," Williamson said. "I don't see what's wrong with a patriotic display that makes a reference to God. "
Postal spokesman David Lewin, in Houston, said the Montgomery post office had not been authorized to hang the poster and was forced to remove it because it "did not fit within postal guidelines."
He pointed to postal regulation 232 under sections about "depositing literature" and "soliciting and electioneering" which state that the posting of most handbills, fliers, pamphlets, signs, placards and posters in post office lobbies is prohibited.
He said the only exceptions are things such as FBI wanted posters, missing child posters, stamp art contests, and community bulletin board items that are "informational but not permanent in nature."
"We don't know what is happening at all 40,000 post offices around the country but we try to have them adhere to our regulations," he said. "Sometimes we hire a `mystery shopper' to visit area post offices and make sure they are in compliance."
The motto was first used on a 2-cent coin minted in 1864, and now federal law dictates its inscription on all coins and paper money. It is also prominently engraved in the wall above the speaker's dais in the U.S. House of Representatives and appears over the entrance to the U.S. Senate chamber.
Miera, who operates the contract post office in a small red building in Cut and Shoot, has the framed poster on the wall behind the counter where she sells stamps atop a piece of fabric, which she bought at a discount store after the terrorist attack, that depicts the Statue of Liberty and states "God Bless America."
"I am not taking this down," she said. "I don't know why in the world somebody would not want it. This is what our boys have always fought for -- God and country. It would be plumb stupid to remove it."
A Montgomery postal supervisor learned about the national motto poster after several post offices in the county asked about displaying it, Lewin said.
Williamson said that when he talked to postal supervisor C.O. Sylvester about the poster, he was told that the post office cannot receive any gifts.
"He (Sylvester) said what if somebody wanted to display the Iraq flag or advertise the Ku Klux Klan rally that is planned for Saturday in the park across the street from the post office. If you take one, then you have to take them all," Williamson said.
Williamson, who said his brother's post office in Nashville has a gallery of photographs of country western singers, has sent letters to U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Woodlands; U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and U.S. Postmaster General John Potter protesting the removal.
Hutchison could not be reached for comment. Brady's chief of staff, Doug Centilli, said Brady did not see a problem with such a poster in the post office and had asked Potter for an explanation.
"Brady is on record, along with most every other members of the House of Representatives, as encouraging the display of the national motto in public buildings," said Centilli.
He said the House resolution supporting public display of the motto adopted two years ago will probably be presented in the next session.
Montgomery County Judge Alan B. Sadler said he has not had any complaints since the commissioners ordered the posters put in all the county's libraries. The head librarian had asked the county attorney's office whether the poster might be a violation of the constitutional amendment prohibiting the government from promoting religion.
The county's assistant attorney, Robert Rosenquist, recommended that they not hang the poster to avoid a possible court battle. While the courts have upheld the motto as "proper" for coins and currency, the courts have not said whether it was proper for libraries, his opinion stated. The commissioners decided to ignore the opinion and put the posters up anyway.
Karyl Palmisano with Mainstream Montgomery County opposed displaying the poster when it came before the commissioners court, taking issue with the organization that sold the posters to Williamson, "because they were bought from the American Family Association which represents the religious right. I see it totally as a violation of church and state."
Whether the posters remain in post offices will ultimately be determined by the postmaster general, Lewin said.
And of course they didn't need to do anything at all with the Jews. They weren't up in arms against Spain.
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