25 December 2008

"Congress shall make no law...."

ZUI the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...." It doesn't have to be an actual law; in 2001, Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore had a 2.6-ton granite monument with the Ten Commandments installed in the state judicial building in Montgomery, Alabama, saying that said Commandments were the foundation of the US legal system. In 2003, after a lawsuit argued that the marker constituted a government endorsement of Christianity, US District Judge Myron Thompson ruled that it had to go.

Similarly, prayer is not authorised in public schools because said establishments are owned and operated by the city in which they are located, and thus permitting prayer constitutes endorsement of religion by the local government. (It may be only city government, but it's still government.)

However....

ZUI US Code Title 5, Para 6103:
(a) The following are legal public holidays:
New Year’s Day, January 1.
Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., the third Monday in January.
Washington’s Birthday, the third Monday in February.
Memorial Day, the last Monday in May.
Independence Day, July 4.
Labor Day, the first Monday in September.
Columbus Day, the second Monday in October.
Veterans Day, November 11.
Thanksgiving Day, the fourth Thursday in November.
Christmas Day, December 25.

We have here an actual quote from federal law, designating a Christian religious holiday (Christmas) as a "legal public holiday." Somebody want to try explaining to me how this law fails to be a violation of the First Amendment?

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