WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court said March 6 it will not hear an Indiana man’s challenge to the governor’s designation of Good Friday as a state holiday. Earlier this year, the nation’s high court refused to hear a similar challenge to a Maryland law that closes public schools on Good Friday.
Upholding a federal magistrate’s decision to dismiss the Indiana case, a three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the Indiana holiday choice does not violate the Constitution.
Good Friday has been a legal holiday in Indiana since 1941. Russell Bridenbaugh, a taxpayer from Bloomington, Ind., sued Gov. Frank O’Bannon for making Good Friday one the state’s 12 holidays in a nonelection year.
Bridenbaugh said the holiday amounted to a “law respecting an establishment of religion,” specifically Christianity.
But the appeals court, in a 2–1 decision, disagreed.
“Indiana does not celebrate the religious aspects of Good Friday; for Indiana, the holiday has absolutely no religious significance,” the appeals court panel said. “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.”
Share with others: