ADF to Supreme Court: Can someone sue for ‘feeling uncomfortable’?

WASHINGTON — The Alliance Defense Fund filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday asking the court to rule on whether “feeling uncomfortable” gives someone grounds to sue over religious expression they find offensive. The appeal, which involves a church that runs a contract postal unit in Manchester, Conn., also argues that the church’s religious literature does not become government-sponsored speech simply because of its proximity to the postal counter.

“Private Christian entities shouldn’t be censored for displaying information about their own religious ministries, on their own properties, simply because they participate in contracts with the government,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Jeff Shafer. “The most recent ruling in this case has already established that the First Amendment does not call for a wholesale cleansing of the church’s speech from its own facility. However, the person who sued the church was allowed to pursue this case simply because he was ‘feeling uncomfortable.’ That is not sufficient grounds to authorize a federal case, according to U.S. Supreme Court precedent.”

A customer, Bertram Cooper, sued the U.S. Postal Service and the Manchester, Conn., postmaster for allegedly violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Cooper argued that a church’s religious displays presented inside a Postal Service contract provider store named Sincerely Yours, Inc., which is privately owned and operated by the Full Gospel Interdenominational Church, constitutes a government endorsement of religion.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled that it was not necessary for the church to remove all religious expression from the premises; however, it did find that religious expression in close proximity to the postal counter would be considered government speech instead of private speech.

“Its explanation for that extension was both arbitrary and incomplete,” the ADF petition argues. “First, the court conflated function and space.... But even if the court’s government classification of the space near the transaction counter could be justified, its federal government classification of the church’s speech remains unexplained. For private speech in ‘government space’ does not necessarily become the government’s speech.”

Sincerely Yours has operated since 2002 as a private business on its own private property, with signs and other indicators in several locations informing patrons the store is a contract postal unit operated by a church. On the counter is a sign bearing the USPS official logo, which reads, “The United States Postal Service does not endorse the religious viewpoint expressed in the material posted at this Contract Postal Unit.”

The USPS awarded the store a contract to sell postal services to the local community in 2001. The USPS commonly awards such contracts to spare the government the expense and responsibility of maintaining a facility and staff of its own and to allow a greater geographic distribution of locations from which postal services may be purchased.

ADF-allied attorney Joseph Secola of Brookfield, Conn., is local counsel in the case, Sincerely Yours v. Cooper.

ADF is a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and like-minded organizations defending the right of people to freely live out their faith. Launched in 1994, ADF employs a unique combination of strategy, training, funding, and litigation to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.