U.S. Court Finds Good Friday to Be Legitimate State Holiday

For the first time, a federal court of appeals has upheld the constitutionality of designating Good Friday a legal state holiday.

In a 2-1 decision handed down Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit upheld Hawaii’s observance of the Christian holy day.

The majority opinion called the holiday “a minimal accommodation of the religious practices of some Hawaiians,” and reasoned that the state was not favoring religion, but merely giving workers a day off.

Both judges who ruled in favor of the state — Diarmuid O’Scannlain and Stephen Trott — were appointed by President Ronald Reagan, according to an Associated Press account.

In a dissent, Justice Dorothy Nelson said, “The holly and the ivy, jingling bells, red-nosed reindeer and frosty snowmen this is not. What this case is about is Hawaii’s endorsement, by means of a state holiday, of a day thoroughly infused with religious significance.”

The decision “turned the First Amendment on its head,” according to Joel Goldstein, an attorney and president of the West Central region of the American Jewish Congress, who filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case.

“What Hawaii did is nothing less than a declaration that Christianity and its observances are its own. Surely, this is literally an establishment of religion,” Goldstein said in a statement.

The plaintiffs in the case were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii.

According to ACLU staff attorney Carl Varady, “We’ve had lots of calls from Christians and Christian clergy saying they think it’s inappropriate for the state to give sanction to the day of Good Friday.”

Mark Stern, legal director for the American Jewish Congress, was surprised by the decision. “It’s so obvious (that this infringes on the separation of church and state) that you wonder how judges can get it wrong,” he said.

The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith and Americans United for Separation of Church and State signed on to the AJCongress brief.

“That a religious holiday should be designated a state holiday seems inconsistent with the letter and the spirit of the establishment clause of the First Amendment,” said Steven Freeman, ADL’s legal director.

The ACLU plans to pursue the case by asking the appellate court to reconsider its decision or by taking it to the U.S. Supreme Court.

If a petition fails to bring the case before the Supreme Court, the ACLU, with the support of AJCongress, will “pursue this case until it’s finished. We’ll go elsewhere,” to one of the other 11 states where the Friday before Easter Sunday is a holiday for state employees, Stern said.

State courts in California and Connecticut have ruled Good Friday cannot be a state holiday.