The lone opposition of the Democrat is the only one that is right. It isn't that the state ought to oppose Islam, while favoring Christianity as I'm sure the Republicans were thinking. It's the fact that holidays declared for religious purposes are ridiculous, even the ones about that one Jew.
The lone opposition of the Democrat is the only one that is right. It isn't that the state ought to oppose Islam, while favoring Christianity as I'm sure the Republicans were thinking. It's the fact that holidays declared for religious purposes are ridiculous, even the ones about that one Jew.
Holidays like Easter and Christmas have been so secularized that I don't see any real constitutional problems with declaring them national or state holidays.
However, declaring an official holiday based explicitly on a religion raises some serious issues with the Establishment Clause.
I'm not sure where to find the stated purpose for a Christmas holiday from the government, but I'm rather sure it was originally established as a religious holiday. Whether it's been changed since I don't know. Easter, however, is still rather religiously explicit. Christmas has become pretty far separated from it's origina intent, but Easter still seems to concentrate a lot on Christ's resurrection.
Actually, from looking at this list provided by Wikipedia, Easter actually isn't a federal holiday.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_holiday
I think that might have more to do with however Easter is decided. Something to do with the moon and blah blah blah. It has no designated date or week of occurance.
-- Edited by DEATHPIGGIE on Thursday 7th of May 2009 04:36:35 PM