Secular holidays only

Take the hard line.

Here's part of the problem with showing respect for religious belief:

In a news letter circulated by Britian's National Secular Society the article titled "Minority religious holidays forced on schools" points out how yielding to the broader variety of beliefs found in open democratic societies becomes a nuisance of interruptions upon public institutions.

Teachers in the east London borough of Waltham Forest are expressing concern at the imposition of minority religious holidays on schools... Next year community schools in the borough will be obliged to close during Eid-Ul-Fitr, Guru Nanak and Diwali – regardless of whether or not they have any Hindu or Sikh pupils.

There are hundreds and hundreds of religions, each with its own short list of celebration days. Yielding to all of them is tantamount to marking an institutions' calendar "closed" throughout the year. Yielding to some of them is an open the door to allowing for additional discriminatory practices. Yielding to none seems like the best recourse.

Its true. Religious holidays ought to be ignored and snubbed entirely to end the dilemma of which to allow and which to ban; political holidays, national holidays and rationally chosen vacation periods must be given license to rule the seasons, putting an end to this problem of religion.

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