This Sunday marks one of the holiest days in the Christian calendar. The celebration of Easter is a day in which Christians all over the world commemorate Jesus’ resurrection as described in the New Testament.
For some, it is a religious holiday. For others, they celebrate by getting together with friends and family or participate in secular Easter activities such as dying eggs.
Three days before Easter, there is another lesser known holiday called “Good Friday.” This is the commemoration of Jesus’ death on the cross in which many people go to church or spend the day visiting friends and family.
I have been at the University of Wyoming for four years now and there is something that has always baffled me: Why does UW give us a day off for Good Friday?
I guess I am a little torn on my feelings with this one. Do not get me wrong, I love getting days off from school and having three-day weekends. This day off is allowing me to travel to Salt Lake City to watch the Mariners and Rockies play a preseason MLB game this weekend and allowing many of my friends to go see their families. But should we really be getting a day off for a Christian holiday?
While it is true that it is not a federal holiday, UW is still a public institution. It is kind of hard to justify us getting Good Friday off as it is a borderline infringement on the establishment clause.
And why our university? Most of the schools in the surrounding area do not get Friday off, but we do. Perhaps one could justify the holiday as just a make-up day for all the -40 degree weather we had to endure in the winter and still go to class. But what it comes down to is that we are getting a day off for a Christian holiday and I am not so sure that is right.
I am not saying that some sort of wild “right-wing Christian” propaganda movement is going on at the University of Wyoming. I hate to break it to you conspiracy theorists out there but there is not.
I am just saying it is fairly odd to think that UW gives us this Friday off, especially after spring break last week.
If the day off was not on a Holy Christian holiday, there would be no problem here. This is really a separation of church and state issue that often goes unnoticed and we need to be careful to not ignore it.
Regardless of whether you are celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ or you are simply planting Easter Eggs in your backyard for your younger family members to find, we are getting the day off, so go out and enjoy your three day weekend. But just think about that line between church and state and whether or not it is being crossed in this situation.
