Good Friday work
holiday challenged
A Hawaii group says the state and county
By Mary Adamski
observance violates the U.S. Constitution
Star-BulletinWhen state and county workers get Good Friday off, it makes a welcome three-day Easter weekend, but it's a violation of the U.S. Constitution, according to a challenge being started by the Hawaii Citizens for the Separation of State and Church. Government observance of the day on which Christians remember the crucifixion of Jesus Christ violates the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom, said Mitchell Kahle, president of the organization. "The effect is a message to non-Christians that the government recognizes the Christian religion."
Kahle said the group is not proposing that government workers lose a paid holiday. What he suggested in a Jan. 1 letter to state Attorney General Margery Bronster is a holiday with "an agreeable secular designation" such as Spring Holiday. It should be scheduled on a fixed April date, such as the first Monday of the month, and no longer linked to the Easter weekend, he said.
The challenge comes on the heels of successful activism by Hawaii Citizens for Separation of State and Church, whose protests led the Army to dismantle a large cross at Schofield Barracks and the city to revamp the method of choosing and locating private organizations' exhibits in the Honolulu City Lights display.
Both protests charged that the governments gave unfair advantage to the Christian religion in violation of the doctrine of separation of church and state.
It's not the first time the constitutionality of the Good Friday holiday has been contested here. A federal appeals court upheld the Hawaii observance seven years ago in a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Bronster cited that suit, Cammack vs. Waihee, in a Tuesday letter to Kahle asserting that "any legal challenge to Hawaii's Good Friday holiday would be unsuccessful in light of the Cammack decision."
She wrote that any lingering constitutionality question could be resolved in a legislative resolution that affirms there is no intent of promoting Christianity in keeping the Good Friday holiday. "Passage of such a resolution would further emphasize the secular purposes for the holiday and eliminate any viable challenge to the holiday," wrote the attorney general, who said she would support passage of such a resolution.
That's not good enough, said Kahle. "No matter what the Legislature would declare, the perception in the community would be that it is an endorsement of Christianity.
"The violation is especially evident in Hawaii where less than 35 percent of the people acknowledge Christianity," said Kahle, quoting from state census information about church membership.
Kahle said he hopes that the executive and legislative branches will make the effort to sort out the legality of the issue from emotional reaction and come up with "a bill that is fair and equitable for all Hawaii. We hope that reason will prevail and the governor will move to get the law changed. As chief executive, he carries a lot of weight. For a small upstart group like us to get a bill in the Legislature, where it would have to get committee support . . . we don't believe the Legislature would give us the support."
Only 11 other states have a Good Friday holiday. A Wisconsin law was found unconstitutional in 1996. It provided for government offices to close on Good Friday so the period from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. could be "uniformly observed for the purpose of worship."
The Good Friday holiday has been on the books here since 1941.
Kahle quotes from a territorial Legislature committee report that described the day as one of "the solemn religious observance by the members of various churches and denominations."
But the state prevailed in the 1987 American Civil Liberties Union suit by providing other 1941 documentation that showed lawmakers had a secular motive, seeking to insert another paid government holiday between the former Washington's birthday observance in February and Memorial Day in May.
In August 1991, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld federal District Judge Alan C. Kay, who concluded that the Constitution was not violated by the Good Friday holiday. But seven 9th Circuit judges wrote dissenting opinions, some asserting that it was unconstitutional.
