The US Postal Service has decided not to issue new religious-themed holiday stamps this year because of a "business decision" and not because it wants to "silence religious views" as its critics have been claiming.
Mark Saunders, a spokesman for the US Postal Service, clarified that although no new US stamps with religious themes are planned this year, the Postal Service currently has three different traditional Christmas stamps showing religious scenes available for purchase—the 2011 Madonna of the Candelabra Christmas forever stamp, the 2013 Virgin and Child by Gossaert forever stamp, and the 2012-13 Holy Family forever stamp.
"We have more than a half billion religious-themed holiday stamps in inventory and based on prior year's purchases, that's more than twice sold during a typical Holiday season," Saunders said in response to an article in The Daily Caller questioning the US Postal Service decision not to issue new holiday stamps this year.
"Our decision to print select holiday-themed stamps every other year is a business decision based on supply and demand while serving the needs of our customers," Saunders said.
He said last month, postal officials announced that they will issue holiday stamps during alternating years.
Saunders said the Sept. 10 Daily Caller article headlined "Is the Postal Service Declaring War on Religion?" is "incorrect and misleads your readers into thinking Post Offices will not be offering religious-themed holiday stamps this year."
"Nothing could be further from the truth," he wrote in his rebuttal letter.
However, Mark Sharp, legal counsel for the Alliance for Defense of Freedom, commented that the decision of the US Postal Service not to issue new holiday stamps this year is another indication of the government's effort to "silence and censor religion."
"We're seeing more and more, a government that is silencing and censoring of religious views, of religious beliefs and of religious symbols," Sharp said.
"This is one symptom of a very broader effort to purge religion from the public square," he added.
