Author: Lawrence Morahan
Publication: CNSNews.com
Date: April 16, 2003
URL: http://www.cnsnews.com/Pentagon/Archive/200304/PEN20030416a.html
The U.S. Postal Service overstepped
its bounds when it told a North Carolina customer he couldn't mail Christian
literature to his son, who is serving as an Army National Guardsman in
the Persian Gulf, a legal watchdog group said.
Postal regulations that prohibit
the mailing of "religious materials contrary to the Islamic faith" to Persian
Gulf countries are unconstitutional, said John Whitehead, president of
the Rutherford Institute, a public interest law firm based in Charlottesville,
Va.
"What you have here is a soldier
who is fighting in Operation Iraqi Freedom for the very freedoms that we
have in this country, and he is being denied those freedoms, and I don't
think that we should allow that," Whitehead said.
Whitehead filed a complaint with
the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia alleging that the
Postal Service violated the free speech and religious rights of National
Guardsman Daniel Moody and those of his father, Jack Moody of Lenoir, N.C.,
when postal officials told the father he couldn't send Christian comic
books and a book of Bible verses to his son in Kuwait.
However, the Postal Service said
customs officials of the host country, not the United States, impose the
regulation, and the postal employees were simply relaying information.
Moreover, the host country's primary concern is about items of mass quantities
going to the general population, not individual mailings.
"If you're mailing to an individual
soldier, it should not be an issue," said Mark Saunders, a Postal Service
spokesman in Washington.
Indeed, the Postal Service has updated
the guidance for mailings to read: "Although religious materials contrary
to the Islamic faith are prohibited in bulk quantities, items for the personal
use of the addressee are permissible," Saunders noted.
The restriction, included in the
Postal Service's regulations for overseas military mail, was adopted around
the time of the Gulf War in 1991 and originates with Customs regulations
in many Persian Gulf countries, Saunders said.
One of the countries is Kuwait,
which enforces strict regulations on religious materials, alcohol, pornography
and firearms.
Whitehead said a postal supervisor
in Lenoir rebuffed Jack Moody when he tried to send the items, claiming
it was against regulations pertaining to overseas military mail. Daniel
Moody's Army National Guard unit - the 1454th Transportation Company based
in Concord - was mobilized to Kuwait in January.
The complaint charges that the U.S.
Postal Service regulation violates the family's rights to exercise their
faith under the First Amendment, Fifth Amendment and Religious Freedom
Restoration Act.
The regulation also endorses the
Islamic faith over all other religions, Whitehead said.
"Our government, no matter what
any other country says, cannot prefer one faith over all other faiths,"
he said.
Whitehead said he is seeking a judgment
invalidating the regulation and an injunction prohibiting the Postal Service
from enforcing it. The Postal Service has until May 2 to answer the complaint.
