Issues@Hand

AFA initiatives, Christian activism, news briefs

January 2003 – A retired engineer in Texas is being credited with prompting the U.S. government to place copies of the national motto in every post office across the country.

Earlier this year, Frank Williamson bought a few AFA posters displaying the national motto, "In God We Trust," for his local post offices in Montgomery County, about 60 miles north of Houston. In October, however, officials ordered his donated posters taken down from post offices in the Montgomery County area.

All post offices complied, except for the one in Cut and Shoot, Texas, where postmistress Ida Miera refused, saying it would come down over her dead body, according to the Houston Chronicle.

"I am not taking this down. I don't know why in the world somebody would not want it," she said. "This is what our boys have always fought for, God and country."

The order to remove the posters donated by Williamson motivated him to write a letter of protest to the U.S. Postmaster General. He recently received word of the U.S. Postal Service's (USPS) decision to design its own poster with the motto and place the phrase in all 38,000 post offices across the country.

The new poster for the USPS is designed to look like a large stamp with a drawing of the Statue of Liberty in the middle, and the motto printed above the crown. According to the Houston Chronicle, postal spokesman David Lewin said the USPS wanted to comply with the spirit of a resolution adopted two years ago that supported placing the motto in every public building possible.

The USPS decision comes on the heels of President Bush's support of the national motto. In November, Bush signed into law a bill reaffirming the words "In God We Trust" as the national motto, as well as "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Williamson also wants his home state of Texas to officially promote the motto in other public buildings. "Here in Texas, we have gone to our local representative and our senators, and asked that they go to Austin this January and pass a resolution that [the national motto] should be in every classroom in the State of Texas and in public buildings, and to be funded by private funds," he said.

Why is he doing this? "As I've told people before [when] they ask me what church I'm with or what group I'm with, we're doing this as individuals," he says. "We're patriotic, concerned Christians of this great nation and want our children to know what the national motto is and [that] our country was founded by people who had a trust in God. And only as we continue to trust in God will our nation continue to exist."

AFA has also joined with others in an effort to pass a Constitutional Amendment protecting the Pledge of Allegiance and the national motto. This proposed Constitutional Amendment is sponsored in the House (H.J. Res 108) by Rep. Chip Pickering and in the Senate (S.J. Res 43) by Sen. Trent Lott. Toward that end, AFA has collected more than 388,000 online signatures and almost 489,000 paper signatures in support of the Amendment, with a goal of 10 million. In all, 21 state governors have also endorsed the Constitutional Amendment.