Dare To Ask Talk And News About Our Differences - This topic has 6 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 16 years, 11 months ago by
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Should all religions have specific days off of school and work for their holy days or holidays?
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Name : Christy S., Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Methodist, Age : 20, City : Tunkhannock, State : PA, Country : United States, Occupation : Cook, Education level : 2 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,It would make sense, since we have Christmas off, but then there would be too many days off for all of the holidays and the students’ education might suffer.
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Name : Michael-W28682, Gender : M, City : Chicago, State : IL, Country : United States,It seems that would be fair. Why should some religions get their holidays off and not others? But we’d never get anything done if we did it that way. Some holy days are Saturday, others on Sunday, and even on Thursday. My holy days are full moons, dark moons and seasonal changes and cross-quarters. But many holy days don’t need the whole day off. Sounds like a mess to me!
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Name : Jamie, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Wiccan, Age : 23, City : Bellingham, State : WA, Country : United States, Occupation : Student, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Lower middle class,This is supposed to be a country with freedom of religion but it seems that the only ones who truly get noticed are those that celebrate some sort of Christian religion. I feel that we should acknowledge all or none. Why should only a certain religious holiday be noticed while others must march on and be ignored?
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Name : Heather, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Disability : Fybromyalgia & Raynaud's, Race : White/Caucasian, Age : 31, City : Somewhere, State : WV, Country : United States, Occupation : Disabled-medical, Education level : Technical School, Social class : Middle class,It sure is a complicated balancing act, but where I work in Cambridge, Massachusetts, my office follows the lead of Cambridge City Hall, which has decided on the following: give people the religious holiday or part of the day off (with pay,) providing the following three requirements are met: (1) their particular religion bans working on that day, or (2) their religion requires the person to be at services that day, and (3) the person is an ‘observant participant.’ (i.e., you can’t take the day off with pay just because your great-grandparents were religious and observed the holiday but you don’t at all.) And if required religious services are just one hour, you are expected to show up for work after services. Also, everyone of all religions gets off (with pay) the big Christian holidays (Christmas, etc.)
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Name : Laurie, Gender : Female, Age : 56, City : Boston, State : MA, Country : United States,At my workplace, in addition to recognizing most Federal Holidays (albeit many are Christian, see below for the practicality of this), we are given two (2) personal holidays that we can take at anytime like vacation. This allows people who really want to take Veteran’s Day off (one of the Federal Holidays we don’t observe) they can. If an employee feels the need to take off Good Friday or Ash Wednesday (or both), they can. In my case I can use them to attend Sabbat rituals that might have been difficult to attend otherwise (mind you there are eight Sabbats and only two personal holidays, but it is something). Marshall University in Huntington, WV has actually instituted a policy of allowing students of Pagan faiths to take days off for religious purposes. This is in addition to the many
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Name : ChrisD, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Religion : Atheist, City : Austin, State : TX, Country : United States, Occupation : Production Manager, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,To me, it seems like a major part of the reason that the US makes Christian holidays official is that the large majority of the country is Christian. If there will be specific days when 86% of the country is going to say “It’s a holy day for me, I’m not coming in to work” then you might as well give everyone the day off work, because the remaining 14% aren’t going to get much done. So really, I don’t think it’s necessary or particularly practical for the entire country to have a national holiday based on the holy days of a group that is not a significant percentage of the population. If there is a particular area that, say, has a very high concentration of Muslims (as I’m aware that some towns in the USA do) then it makes sense for them to have local days off based on Muslim holidays
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Name : AdelaK, Gender : Female, Sexual Orientation : Lesbian, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Christian Scientist, Age : 22, City : Winchester, State : VA, Country : United States, Education level : 4 Years of College,
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