PORTLAND (AP) – The Maine Human Rights Commission has sided with two postal carriers who say a Christian-themed column in a union newsletter amounts to religious discrimination.

The pair targeted a monthly column entitled “Directions From God’s Handbook” in a monthly newsletter distributed to more than 100,000 members of the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association.

One recent column urged readers to bring the “good news of Christ’s salvation to non-Christians,” and another said God’s people are those who accept Jesus.

Dick Springer, who describes himself as a “nonbeliever,” said the column is offensive to him. “The organization takes my money and uses it to proselytize for religious beliefs which are not mine,” he told Maine Public Radio.

Springer’s co-worker, Eric Copperman, who is Jewish, said the Christian proselytizing smacks of anti-Semitism.

“The column is not calling for persecution but the language used is alarmingly similar to the justification for anti-Semitism since antiquity, and it’s extremely alarming,” Coppperman said.

Copperman said he feels alienated and excluded by a pledge to the Christian flag that takes place at the annual union convention by the union’s auxiliary.

Early this month, the Maine Human Rights Commission sided with the postal carriers, ruling that the letter carriers had grounds to go forward with a lawsuit against their union.

In its response, the union contends the two are voluntary members and that it has not violated any constitutional protections because it’s not a government body establishing a state religion.

Pat Ryan, the human right’s commission’s executive director, said it’s not an option for the two to quit the union. “They are being excluded, I think, from the benefits of membership,” she said.

If a solution cannot be mediated, the commission then will consider appointing a lawyer to bring the suit to court.