High court allows Indiana to keep Good Friday as a state holiday
By Richard Carelli, Associated Press, 03/06/00
WASHINGTON - Indiana's designation of Good Friday as a state holiday survived a Supreme Court challenge today.
The justices, without comment, allowed the state to continue giving its employees that day off, a practice begun in 1941. They rejected an appeal that said the holiday designation violates the constitutionally required separation of church and state.
Today's denial of review was not a surprise. The court in January rejected a challenge to a Maryland law that requires the annual closing of all public schools on Good Friday.
An Indiana taxpayer, Russell Bridenbaugh of Bloomington, contended that his state's practice improperly advances or promotes the Christian religion.
Good Friday, always two days before Easter, is the Christian holiday that commemorates the crucifixion of Jesus. But lower courts ruled that Indiana officials have several legitimate, non-religious reasons for treating that day as an annual holiday.
Lawyers for Bridenbaugh told the court that at least 14 other states have laws making all or part of Good Friday a legal holiday. They are California, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Wisconsin.
Some of those laws have been struck down after being challenged in court.
After Bridenbaugh sued in 1997, a federal magistrate threw out the case without a trial. A three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal last July, by a 2-1 vote.
A separate panel of that same appeals court previously had struck down the Illinois law that provided for school closings on each Good Friday.
Indiana's main purpose in designating the state holiday is to provide a long spring weekend, the appeals court panel found.
"Indiana does not celebrate the religious aspects of Good Friday; for Indiana, the holiday has absolutely no religious significance. To Indiana, Good Friday is nothing but a Friday falling in the middle of the long vacationless spring -- a day which employees should take off to rejuvenate themselves," the panel said.
The dissenting judge said the state should not be allowed to choose Good Friday as the spring holiday every year. But the two-judge majority noted that the designation gives state employees a three-day weekend "during a time which typically involves travel, shopping, cooking and family gatherings."
Bridenbaugh's appeal said the panel wrongly found that Good Friday has been "secularized" by its linkage to Easter, which for Christians commemorates Jesus' resurrection but also is associated with the Easter bunny and egg hunts.
"Good Friday is a purely religious holiday," the appeal contended.
The case is Bridenbaugh vs. O'Bannon, 99-812.
