It's funny to hear two people or groups talking past each other. Take the US Postal Service and the Freedom From Religion Foundation going at it about the upcoming Mother Theresa commemorative postage stamp. Both sides get the issue partly right, partly wrong.

The FFRF complains that by issuing a Mother Theresa stamp, the USPS is violating it's regulation against honoring people who are primarily noted for religious undertakings.  I did a little digging, and found this page on the USPS.com web site.  The relevant section would appear to be:

So what was Mother Theresa known for?  Ask anyone on the street who has heard of her, and the response would probably be "working with the poor".  That's it in a nutshell.  Mother Theresa was not primarily known as a preacher, although she spoke with strong religious and moral conviction.  Although she was the foundress of a great religious order who has missions all over the world (including here in Memphis), she is not known primarily as such.  She was known primarily for going out into the streets of Calcutta and gathering up the forgotten people, showing them compassion and supporting their dignity.

It seems to me the FRFF would have more of a leg to stand on if they protested on the fact that she was not really a US Citizen, although she was given honorary citizenship by President Clinton and the US Congress in 1996.

However, they do have a valid point.  "You can't really separate her being a nun and being a Roman Catholic from everything she did," said FFRF spokeswoman Annie Laurie Gaylor to Fox News.  She's right about that.  You cannot separate Mother Theresa's humanitarian work from her Catholicism, because religion drove everything she did.  Even if the humanitarian work is what she's being honored for, that work came about because of her love of Christ.

The USPS countered by pointing out they've honored people before with religious backgrounds, such as Malcom X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Father Flanagan.  These men were honored for civil rights or humanitarian work, but they were all informed by their religion.  The USPS is splitting hairs pretty thinly when they say they are not honoring the religious work of these men.  For Dr. King and Fr. Flanagan particularly, while their work might be recognized as good on a secular level, it was religious work built on their faith in God and in Christ.  To deny that is really to deny the work as a whole.

The FFRF really goes off-axis when responding about these previous honorees.  They opposed Fr. Flanagan's stamp but not Dr. King's.  Gaylor is quoted saying that "Martin Luther King 'just happened to be a minister'".   Really?  A man who referenced the Lord time after time in his speeches, who waxed eloquently using language straight out of the Bible (anyone remember the "I have been to the mountaintop" speech--a clear reference to Moses and the Hebrews?), and who helped found the Southern Christian (there's that word) Leadership Conference, "just happened to be a minister".  It seems to me that most of what he did stemmed from his ministry.

If you think about it, it's pretty silly to say that Mother Theresa is not being honored for religious work, because all her work was religious.  At the same time, the USPS is technically still upholding its regulations because most people would recognize Mother Theresa less as a religious figure and more as a humanitarian.  While it's walking a fine line to claim that your not honoring a religious figure for her religious activity, the FFRF is really the group out on a limb with their desire to suppress honoring someone who did great humanitarian work because that work was religiously based.

As for me, I'll be getting my Mother Theresa stamps because I think she should be honored, both as a humanitarian and as a Christian.  So there.

FoxNews.com - Atheist Group Blasts Postal Service for Mother Teresa Stamp