Claim: Some Texas post offices were required to remove posters bearing the words "In God We Trust" from display.
Status: True.
Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2002]
You may have heard in the news that a couple of Post Offices in TX have been forced to take down small posters that say "IN GOD WE TRUST". The law they say they are violating is something silly about electioneering posters. (is God running for office?) Anyway, I heard proposed on a radio station show, that we all write "IN GOD WE TRUST" on the back of all our mail. After all, that is our national motto, and on all the money we use to buy those stamps. I think it is a wonderful idea. We must take back our nation from all the people that think that anything that offends them should be removed. If you like this idea, please pass it on, and DO IT. |
Origins: In 2002,
to purchase 300 16-by-20-inch framed posters displaying the motto "In God We Trust" in large white letters over the red, white, and blue colors of the American flag.
In November 2002, a United States Postal Service (USPS) supervisor ordered the removal of these posters from the lobbies of government-owned post offices in several Montgomery county towns (including Montgomery, Dobbin, and Willis) because they "did not fit within postal guidelines," citing a USPS regulation prohibiting the "depositing or posting of handbills, flyers, pamphlets, signs, posters, placards, or other literature (except official postal and other governmental notices and announcements) in interior public areas on postal premises." (A small post office north of Houston was allowed to keep its poster on display after a supervisor determined that the office was a privately-run contract facility and was therefore not subject to the same "facility standards" as government-owned post offices.)
The United States' use of a national motto with a religious reference despite the First Amendment's prohibition against Congress' making any "law respecting an establishment of religion" remains
a contentious issue. "In God We Trust" was established as the
Last updated: 2 December 2007
Sources: