Easter is always a Sunday and (Western Christian Easter) includes an overwhelming percent of the population. A lot of things are already closed, simply because it is Sunday and of the operations that are generally open Sunday, many would have a difficult time getting staff to serve on that day.
I don’t really see it as a “religious” observation so much as a practical demonstration of employee relations.
So, shall we expect you to also perform a flip-flop on this three days later? 
We’ve seen a lot of those thinkprogress freeze frames that purport to “prove” that O’Reilly = bad, but they’re pretty unconvincing since they don’t have the needed context to decide exatly what’s going on. I think O’Reilly is a bully and blow-hard, and spends way too much time promoting himself instead of focusing on the issues, but that link doesn’t say much to me. I’d have to to see the verbage that went with the second screen shot. Sorry.
My library is closed 4/16 too.
But then, it’s closed 4/9 and 4/22 and every other Sunday.
They’re only open 10a-2p on Saturdays.
What part of Jersey? The two main branches of the Monmouth County Library are always opened on Saturday.
Dinsdale: You’re right, they should just clarify and say closed for Easter on 4/16. Silly not too.
Jim BTW: Agnostic that happily keeps up the tradition of coloring eggs and having an easter egg hunt.
Since they openly announce that they are closed for “Christmas”, I don’t see how anyone can infer that them leaving out the word “Easter” as the reason for their closing has any ulterior motive whatsoever.
Perhaps they just don’t feel the need to state what they consider to be obvious.
Perhaps they’re not closing due to Easter, but needed to close for a day to take care of whatever it is that libraries need to close to take care of, and figured that Easter would be a good day, as it would likely be slow in the library. Lots of retail businesses use holidays to do their inventory, for example.
Perhaps someone told someone to make a sign stating that they were closing on the 16th, so someone did.
Ten years ago, if a place had a sign that said “Closed Sunday 4/7”, no one would have batted an eye.
Are you in Orange County? Here in Seminole County, we’re open 9-5 on Saturdays and 1-5 on Sundays – even this coming Easter Sunday.
You should have read a little longer, since they included this link to their earlier coverage of Bill’s condemnation of the “War on Easter”, along with a link to Fox’s video of the segment in question. Though I think a quote like “Although some left-wingers in the media deny it, we have documented a number of cases where Christian holidays like Christmas and Easter have been attacked by secular interests” provides its own context.
</hijack>
I’m still unconvinced. Even in the shot of him saying there isn’t an attack on Easter like the one on Christmas, he says there have been two documented “incidents” . What that says to me is there is a War on Christmas, but just a few minor skirmishes related to Easter. You have to understand how O’Reilly thinks. He honestly thinks there’s an organized attack against Christmas by “secular humanists”. Within his own defined parameters, he is being consistent. Don’t make me defend his parameters, though…
PS: Happy Easter (from your friendly neighborhood atheist)!
You mean NYC? Because I’m in Upstate and it’s usually open for a few hours on Sundays.
What drives me crazy is they close at 7 PM on weekdays. This is a college town! My old library opened until 9 PM on weekdays.
Our library has a sign saying closed in honor of Easter.
New Years day is also a lot of closings. Thank god for movie theaters.
Most likely City Policy to give library and other non-essential employees the day off.
As I recall Chicago has a signifigant RC population.
On O’Reilly the other night, he stated that there was no war on easter and that there have been only two incidents of anything happening one of which was a guy being told to take down pictures of Easter Eggs in his cubicle.
About the Christmas thing: I celebrate Christmas. I say Merry Christmas. Someone can tell me Happy Hannakah, Merry Christmas, Have a Nice Day or Happy Winter Solistice, I will smile and say Thank you.
Saying closed on Easter without mentioning the date would be confusing for me, since I wouldn’t necessarily know when Easter is. It changes every year after all.
Saying closed for Easter, on a public building, would seem to violate the establishment cause in a trivial sort of way. The fact that Orthodox christians sometimes celebrate Easter on a different day makes it even more problematical.
It would be better than saying “closed for the day our savior rose after the Jews killed him” though.
I’m in Lake County.
Bergen County, northern NJ. Since I moved here in '81 've been fighting this, writing to the library heads, the newspapers (I’m the official Town Cranky Old Lady). From Memorial Day through Labor Day, libraries are closed Saturdays and Sundays. Infuriating! Who has time to go to the library after work at night? So, summers, I just go to the NYC libraries during my lunch hour.
I disagree. As I’ve said before, Easter (and Christmas) have both secular celebrations and religious celebrations. The government can actively participate in secular celebrations.
Even if they can’t, however, I have no problem with their recognizing that the majority of their constituents and employees are going to be taking the day off anyway, and explaining to folks why that’s happening. If a majority-Catholic school district gives students “Good Friday” off, that doesn’t bother me any more than if a majority-Jewish school district gives students “Yom Kippur” off: it’s just being no-bullshit about why they’re shutting down on that day.
As I see it, they’ve got three major choices:
I’d much prefer option 3.
As a data point: our local libraries are closed from Thursday through Sunday for the Easter holiday.
Daniel
If it’s a Federal holiday, the library is going to be closed, and so is the post office and all other government buildings. It’s the same for Presidents’ Day, July 4th, Christmas, Cesar Chavez Day (OK, maybe that’s a California thing), and MLK Day.
It seems to me that arguing about whether it’s establishment should be taken up with the feds. But really, Easter is almost completely secularized and most of the symbolism is pagan anyhow. You might as well call it Happy Spring Day and leave it at that. (Even changing the name would only de-paganize it. Everyone else calls it some version of Pascha, which is far more Judeo-Christian.)
Isn’t this weekend also Passover?
But it is closed for Easter, so I can’t see any reason not to say it. And you would never get a SCOTUS to agree that something like that violates the establishment clause.