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FAQs>
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Are state holidays constitutional when they are directly tied to some religious observance?
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The Supreme Court has declined to address this issue, though the lower courts
strongly favor the constitutionality of such holidays. The 9th Circuit in 1991
upheld legislation making Good Friday a state holiday in Cammack v.
Waihee, reasoning that the absence of a major traditional holiday in the
spring created a state interest in decreeing one, and that it made sense for the
legislature to select a day that would already be used by the majority of
citizens as a holiday. This decision set the stage for the 4th and 6th Circuits
to issue similar rulings. The 7th Circuit disagreed in Metzl v. Leininger
(1994), holding that because Good Friday is an exclusively Christian holiday
that has in no way been secularized, as have Christmas and Easter, its elevation
to the status of a state holiday was unconstitutional because it sent a message
of endorsement to the public, even if the practical result was neither to
advance nor inhibit religion. The holding in Metzl did allow for a
finding of constitutionality, however, if the legislature would merely make the
effort to advance a secular reasoning for the case.
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