Yuletide Hypocrisy Lingers Past Epiphany

My wife asked me if I needed help picking up my jaw during our Sunday morning drive to church. It had literally dropped when she read the elementary school marquee aloud to me. It read "Great Americans' Day, January 16, School Closed." I suppose that I should not have been so taken back considering we were driving through a small rural town in Central Louisiana, but I was stunned and saddened. A number of thoughts came to mind.

I wondered if the schools on the west end of the parish in the predominantly black parish seat displayed "Great Americans' Day." Somehow I doubt it. I have yet to understand how one school principal has the authority to single handedly change a federal holiday adopted by Congress in 1983, signed by Pres. Ronald Reagan into law, and ratified in the state of Louisiana as a paid holiday for state workers. Does redesignating the holiday at will imply that the school principal and staff wish to have the day off without pay?

It should be noted that Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Birthday is listed as a holiday on January 16, 2006 by the U.S. Postal Service, the U.S. House of Representatives, the White House, the LA State Department of Education, and neighboring parish school boards. "Great Americans' Day" is not a federal holiday, and a Google search lists few places that observe the day sometime in either February or March.

It is interesting to note that the same demographic residing in this rural community represent the same "Christian" segment of our population that protested the replacement of "Merry Christmas" with "Happy Holidays" only a few weeks earlier. No one should be forced to celebrate a holiday they do not believe in, but a public entity such as a school should not be used to promote a political agenda or practice "reverse political correctness," otherwise known as discrimination. An appropriate resolution might be to require the school principal and students to actually study the life and message of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a great American.