It always amazes me that the USA, being so much more religious than Australia or NZ does not have Good Friday as a public holiday. Over here no business or supermarkets are allowed to open. In Dunedin there is no pubic transport. Only small family businesses and petrol stations operate. Easter Sunday is similar but not so restrictive. Last year a law was passed in parliament allowing city councils to decide about businesses operating on Easter Sunday. Dunedin voted to remain closed. The only other similar days are Christmas day and the morning of Anzac day. I would have been horrified if expected to teach on Good Friday.
I think it's as simple as the separation of church and state commanded by the First Amendment to the Constitution. Not only can they not declare a religious holiday a legal holiday but they can't put a soldier's memorial in a public park. That happened in a rural town of 7,000 that I covered for the newspaper. They let a veterans' group put up a little memorial and it was of a soldier kneeling at a grave, and the sculpture had a big cross on it.
Someone on the city council thought that might be seen as mingling church and state, so they removed the memorial. Then protesters picketed the decision and filled the town with Popsicle-stick crosses. So the city put the monument back.
Then the Satanic Temple got involved. They insisted on being able to put up a monument of their own. So the city declared a small portion of the park a place for rotating memorials that would stand for a few months apiece. The city said OK to the Satanists, which then of course led to more local protests. So the city council killed the whole idea. So -- and this is where I came in to report the story -- the Satanic Temple was suing the city for reneging on its promise, because they'd already constructed the memorial.
When first assigned this story I said I thought there's no such thing as real Satanists, that nobody sincerely worships a figure of evil, that people who call themselves Satanists were poseurs who want to be scary and contrarian like the band Black Sabbath or something. Well, turns out I was partly right, except that the Satanic Temple itself doesn't seriously claim to worship or even believe in any non-scientifically-provable figures, such as Satan. Their whole purpose is to combat mingling of church and state, as they explain on their website and as I heard when I talked to the co-founder on the phone.
Basically they're the ACLU with a more provocative and attention-grabbing approach. The Temple is based in NYC and is subject of a recent documentary. The monument they made to put in the small town was, I thought, tasteful: a black stone cube etched with a pentagram and topped with an upside-down soldier's helmet.
This little town was literally the first place they would have ever put a monument of any kind. But while the city wavered back and forth they got in a similar spat in Chicago and in that case their monument was a giant sculpture of a goat-headed man. Maybe some of you know who this figure is -- something that starts with B, I believe. Far less tasteful than the other one, IMO.