Yeah, just drop an H-bomb on it and declare victory, already.
While I agree, the government isn’t exactly consistent in its holiday policy. Only 3 (maybe 4) holidays apply to this rule: New Years, Christmas, and Thanksgiving, and I’ll maybe grant you Independence day. The rest are days that nobody would take off anyway, and in fact my civilian employer, like many others, lets us shift some of those days to days that we might actually want to take off, like pushing Veteran’s Day to the day after Thanksgiving.
Based on my experience working for the government, nobody shows up on the day after Thanksgiving, and most of the 2 week period around Christmas is a ghost town. Specifically, the government might as well just shut down for the whole week of Christmas for as much work that gets done then.
So the policy isn’t standardized, and Christmas does somewhat get singled out as the lone religious holiday. Ultimately, this could all be solved if we combine this policy of “shut down when nobody’s going to show up anyway” with Cosmic Relief’s brilliant plan to shuffle the remaining holidays to days that make more sense.
[QUOTE=Omg a Black Conservative]
Who wants to work on Christmas
[/QUOTE]
?
But most of the people who work on Christmas have jobs where they perform a necessary public service like the police, fire department, military, and emergency medical care. Those that don’t (e.g., mill workers who end up with a holiday shift) are often compensated with a higher wage for having to come in.
As for me, I’m not religious but I would be royally pissed if I had to go to work on Christmas. (Incidentally, my occupation is not one of those jobs that’s so important to the public welfare that there has to somebody present at my workplace 24/7.)
Bricker Have you read the 1st amendment? “Congress shall make no…” Prior to incorporation, the 1st would not have been applied to state governments. It would have been applied only to actions taken by the federal government. That is, your argument that Maryland or North Carolina did anything at that time is irrelevant to the historical basis, isn’t it?
As to state government there was tremendous variation in what establishment meant among the colonies and later ex-colonies. New England taxed directly for the benefit of the church, although even that varied within the region and with the times. But in the Meanwhile, the mid-atlantic colonies were settled by altogether different religious backgrounds and would never have taxed directly to support local churches.
Beyond that, well hell, I seem to have left my law school papers at home today. But I would send you to this site, on quick glance it shows the depth of the historical debate and even has links to some primary sources. I would suggest that your usual method of trying to find some court case to encapsualte and justify your position is wrong yet again. A reading of primary sources shows that Madison and Jefferson were in communication during the drafting of the Constitution and what would become the Bill of Rights. Both figures believed in a separation of church and state, but were men of their times and often bowed to public opinion.
You say these men did not object to Congressional chaplains? Try this law review article. PDF Warning.
I want more fed holidays, not less. any excuse will do.
Happy Wednesday!
Stop trying to push your Heathenism on us, you Odin lover, you!
I’ll just add my vote to everyone who says this is simply a practical matter since so many people will take the day off anyway.
I suggest we can resolve all these matters by having a federal Atheist’s Day where everybody has to work. Of course it’s not called that, just something like Work Recognition Day. Then there can’t be any complaints of it actually being an anti-religious holiday, and atheists should be satisfied that nobody’s getting the day off to practice theism.
I wasn’t trying to imply that someone had made the story up. It was Lord Baltimore who claimed the colony for the queen. There are documents that prove this claim was made but there aren’t any that prove he was telling the truth. I can’t imagine any kind of document that would do so definitively. Even a diary entry would be subject to debate since they are often written with an eye towards posthumous reading. As you say, it could be he was honoring both the queen and the Virgin Mary.