Man Who Complained About Religious Reference Called ‘Pathetic’ : Agency Apologizes for ‘Christian’ Letter

The Education Department said Wednesday it regretted that a California man received an “unpleasant” letter from a zealous Christian official at another agency and has changed its policies to better protect the privacy of citizens.

Gerald B. Leib of Mountain View, Calif., wrote to the Education Department in March to complain about an official who distributed a speech that called America a “Christian nation.”

Vehement Response

Two weeks later, he received a vehement reply calling him an “amazing, pathetic creature,” not from the Education Department but from an enthusiastic Christian who works at the Treasury Department.

That official, Christopher C. Sundseth, said that he and a small network of friends in government jobs “write a lot of letters.”

“Just because people are elected to government doesn’t mean they are obligated to compromise their religious beliefs,” he said.

Sundseth, a Reagan Administration appointee, said in an interview that he had received a photocopy of Leib’s postcard “from a friend” and responded--something he does often.

His reply, first obtained by the Washington Post, said, “We are indeed, like it or not, a ‘Christian nation.’

‘Small-Minded Tripe’

“The framers of the Constitution attempted specifically to anticipate those of your ilk who would try and abridge the very rights of freedom to worship guaranteed us . . . . This country was founded by Christians who were escaping the same kind of small-minded tripe you espouse.”

Education Department spokesman Lou Mathis said, “Nobody is quite sure how the fellow got” Leib’s letter.

Because of the incident, Mathis said, the agency, acting on advice from the Justice Department, will now delete the names and addresses of private citizens from its files before the files are distributed within the government.

A Justice Department spokesman said that the agency generally advises other agencies to withhold names and addresses of private citizens if there is any indication that the document is private.

Typically, government agencies handle direct correspondence through an elaborate system that forwards inquiries and comments to the appropriate offices and then makes sure that at least a general response is delivered.

Sundseth, 31, a former director of the Adolph Coors Co.’s political action committee and a fund-raiser in Colorado for President Reagan’s 1980 campaign, received his political appointment last year. His mother, Carolyn B. Sundseth, is a White House public liaison officer who deals with evangelical and fundamentalist Christians.

‘Couple of Christian Guys’

Sundseth said that his activist friends use the Freedom of Information Act “to find letters of anti-religious zealots . . . . Anybody that says anything about Christians is automatically filed by these people. It’s a knee-jerk reaction. It’s no big conspiracy. It’s a couple of Christian guys writing letters.”

He said that “it’s a biblical injunction to warn people” about eventually facing Jesus Christ, “so I warned that guy. I’m saying nothing different than what is in the Bible.”

Leib, who never received a reply from the department, complained to Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.) about Sundseth’s “gratuitous proselytizing.”