Supreme Court asked to decide Christmas holiday case without argumentMar 30, 2001
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty today asked the U.S. Supreme Court to decide a case challenging the designation of Christmas as a federal holiday without further argument. Under the procedure, known as "summary disposition on the merits," the Court could reject the challenge without additional briefing or oral arguments. In doing so, and by making its reasoning on the constitutionality of the holiday "unmistakably clear, once and for all—the Court could provide needed clarity to its public holiday cases and direction to the lower courts," the Becket Fund brief (PDF format, 135K) explained.
The plaintiff in Ganulin v. United States, an assistant city attorney from Cincinnati named Richard Ganulin, filed suit in August, 1998, complaining that the federal Christmas holiday violates the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The Becket Fund, which represents three defendant-intervenors—federal employees who would be adversely affected by eliminating the holiday—argued successfully at both the federal district and circuit court levels that the Christmas holiday designation was "unmistakably constitutional." Federal District Judge Susan J. Dlott dismissed the complaint in December, 1999, and her decision was affirmed by the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in December, 2000. Ganulin then appealed the case to the Supreme Court.
In its brief, The Becket Fund asserts that "providing a legal holiday for Christmas is fully constitutional, no matter which Establishment Clause standard is applied. Instead, the holiday falls within government's broad authority to express acknowledgment of, and to accommodate, voluntary religious exercise. All levels of American government are—and have been for a very long time—in the business of celebrating and accommodating culturally significant days, religious and nonreligious alike. This case represents a perfect illustration of why that practice is plainly constitutional." Relevant Cases
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