The United States has a government with spectacular individual freedoms secured by principles of law and philosophy, such as equal protection, due process, freedom of speech, and separation of church and state.
As the nation matures, it seeks to advance those freedoms. Women, minority races, small sects, freethinkers and others still work mightily to secure for themselves all the liberty that the federal Constitution allows.Needless to say, Christmas Day/ Dec. 25, is the time when Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus of Nazareth whom they believe to be their messiah. Christmas Day/Dec. 25 is also, in the United States, a national legal public holiday.
The establishment of a national legal public holiday by Congress communicates a powerful symbolic and concrete message to the citizenry of the nation. National legal public holidays inform us, educate our children and create a national identity.
Christmas had its origin in a decree of the church in the fourth century. Its name means the Mass of Christ. Christmas Day has been a religious celebration for more than 1,600 years.
Today, in tens of thousands of churches, Christians still celebrate the birth of the person they believe to be their messiah. There are those who emphasize Christian cultural aspects of Christmas Day rather than Christian religious beliefs. Be that as it may, Christmas Day is still Christian.
There are benefits to both non-Christians and Christians from treating Christmas evenhandedly in the eyes of the laws and eliminating its governmental preference. Eliminating preferential status does not, of course, prevent individuals from celebrating Christmas and keeping it holy.
The approximately 35 million non-Christians in the nation will be better able to practice their own beliefs and teach them to their children without the sense of being political outsiders.
Christmas Day was not a national legal public holiday when the United States was formed. The First Amendment to the Constitution requires that "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion . . . " (commonly known as the separation of church and state). It was only after one century that Christmas Day-Dec. 25 was established as a national legal public holiday. Passage of time, in any event, does not act to ratify what otherwise is a violation of the federal Constitution.
The Supreme Court said that whatever else the separation of church and state means, "it certainly means at the very least that government may not demonstrate a preference for one particular sect or creed (including a preference for Christianity over other religions)."
In all four corners of the earth, even in 1998, sectarian differences inspire war, terrorism and hol-o-caust.
We, as the government of the United States, have the opportunity to demonstrate to the world that we practice what we preach. We, by example, will prove that it is possible to maintain a pluralistic civil society within which all religious and nonreligious beliefs are treated equally. Christmas, a holy Christian celebration, is not beyond the reach of that principle.