The Post Office announced here that the 1967 special Christmas stamp would be the same as last year’s — a five-color reproduction of Memling’s “Madonna and Child With Angels,” but would be twice the size. When the stamp was issued last year, a number of Jewish organizations were joined by the American Civil Liberties Union in protesting the issuance of the stamp with a Christian religious theme.
The Civil Liberties Union today announced that it would protest even more strongly this year. Also protesting the plans by the Post Office to issue the controversial stamp this year was the Americans United for Separation of Church and State. The group, a predominantly Protestant organization, announced today that it would bring court action against Postmaster General Lawrence F. O’Brien.
C. Stanley Lowell, associate director of the organization, said that it was “simply incredible” that Mr. O’Brien should reissue in a larger size the same “sectarian” Christmas stamp that caused controversy last year. “It is nothing in the world but a Roman Catholic stamp portraying Mary enthroned as Queen of Heaven, holding in her hand a Roman Catholic missal, a book of liturgy used only in the mass,” he declared.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
