Michael Newdow and other anti-Christian crazies want every reference to Christianity removed from the sight line of all Americans. It’s time that we forced their hand. Their creeping incrementalism has kept us off guard, bleeding us to death with a million small cuts. And since the majority of Americans probably don’t care one way or another whether the president is permitted to have a minister offer a prayer at the inauguration or take the oath of office with his hand on an open Bible, we need to pursue a different strategy. One way to get people’s attention is by making their life uncomfortable, inconvenient, and costly.
So here’s what I’m proposing. Since public (government) schools and government property cannot display religious symbols, we should take this secular philosophy a step further. As we saw this past Christmas, and for several Christmas holidays before, all things religious have been stripped from the public square and the public schools. Let’s do them one better.
Government workers should be denied by law from getting Christmas off as a paid federal holiday. Why should they benefit from the holiday when federal courts have denied the very premise on which the holiday exists? In fact, to call it a “holiday” is no less religious. “Holiday” is a holy-day. This means that all government workers must report to work on Christmas day because it’s a religious holiday. By treating Christmas as any other day, the government is not identifying it as a religious holiday. To pay government workers on a religious holiday is to show financial support for a specific religion–the Christian religion. If giving vouchers to parents who want to send their children to religious schools is constitutionally forbidden, then paying individuals for taking Christmas off should also be unconstitutional.
What if the government tries to turn the holiday into a secular celebration by declaring it “Isaac Newton Day” in honor of the famous scientist who was born on December 25? Since the intent would be to avoid what is obviously a religious holiday, the courts would have to strike it down. The latest Cobb County creation-evolution affair is a case in point. Judge Clarence Cooper deemed the sticker that was to be placed on biology textbooks to be unconstitutional because the motive of some was religious even though the sticker said nothing about religion. Since the motive of those changing the holiday to “Isaac Newton Day” would be to avoid the s obvious religious history of the former Christmas holiday, the courts, to be consistent, would have to deny the new secular holiday.
Government schools could still have their newly conceived “Winter Break” vacation, but students and teachers would have to report to school on Christmas day. We don’t want to leave the impression that teachers are being paid for not working on Christmas. This would be constitutionally inappropriate.
Once we win this case, our next legal maneuver will be to deny government workers the right to have Sundays off. Setting Sunday aside as a day of rest is obviously a hold over from the days when the Ten Commandments were thought to be applicable to everyday life. Setting Sunday aside as a day of rest is even written into the Constitution (Art. 1, sec 7). Of course, this was done by our Constitutional framers who didn’t realize they were doing something unconstitutional. I know that this sounds illogical, but we are dealing with judges.
Now all we need is some gung-ho lawyer who would be willing to take the case and make his appeal to the courts. Christmas will be here before you know it. Let’s shove their logic down their throats.