Government Observance of Good Friday & Easter
Index of Court Decisions
Can the government take a religious holiday and make an official state holiday out of it? Is it an establishment of religion when a religious holy day becomes an official state holiday? Good Friday is a Christian Holy Day which many Christians would surely like to have off, but does that mean that governments should grant it official recognition over and above the holy days of other religions?
These are the sorts of questions which many lower courts acround the country have had to wrestle with. Although such holidays were often accepted as a matter of course in the past, recently more and more people have begun to object to what they perceive as unfair favoritism being shown towards Christianity and Christian beliefs. Because of this, they are challenging the practice of accommodating Christian beliefs in ways not generally accepted for the beliefs of other religions - but with mixed results.
Bridenbaugh v. O'Bannon (1993)
According to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, a government is permitted to give
employees a religious holiday off as a paid vacation day, but only if the government
can provide a legitimate secular purpose for choosing that day instead of any other day.
Metzl v. Leininger (1995)
According to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Illinois' policy of making Good
Friday a school holiday when schools would be closed but teacher paid anyway was
unconstitutional because there was no larger secular purpose involved and, hence, the
holiday amounted to favoritism towards one religion over others.
Koenick v. Felton (1999)
According to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, schools can close for Good Friday and
Easter because such closings serve the secular purpose of saving money when many
students would not be around anyway.
Granzeier v. Middleton (1999)
According to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, government offices can close for Good
Friday and Easter so long as they have a legitimate secular purpose, for example a
desire to accommodate the travel plans of employees.
