To give public employees a day off to go to church on Good Friday has been held, by courts in other states, to violate the First Amendment, but it seems not to trouble the justices in Louisiana.
This is a timely remark for me, Father Steve. The other day I went to my daughter's Honor Roll ceremony. She goes to a public school. Now, Kentucky is most definitely in the Bible Belt; if memory serves me correctly, it took a Federal court order to get the Ten Commandments out of Kentucky schools (posted on the wall, they were), and there is still a lot of controversy over it. However, it has pretty much become accepted that staff cannot lead students in prayer, nor can they advocate any particular religion. So it came as rather a surprise to me when the school's chorus sang a VERY Christianity-based song. And for the first time (mind, it had been a long, long time since I'd heard something like that), it bothered me, sitting there listening to what I would expect as a matter of course--in church. I certainly never gave a thought to it as a child; being a WASP, it did not occur to me that familiar words and songs might be strange, or even offensive, so other kids. But this day, it did bother me; I glanced around, wondering how many in the audience might be non-Christian or atheist, and I thought it was rather unfair to force them to be a captive audience.
