A Cincinnati attorney is suing the United States government because Christmas is recognized as a legal holiday. On August 4, Richard Ganulin filed suit yesterday in U.S. District Court arguing that it is unconstitutional for Congress to proclaim Christmas as a national holiday. In his lawsuit, Ganulin said that he is “damaged” by enforcement of the law because he does not believe in Jesus.
The Catholic League was the first organization in the nation to confront Ganulin. The Cincinnati Enquirer broke the story, citing the league’s position.
“Ganulin doesn’t have a leg to stand on” we said. Reviewing judicial rulings in this area, we mentioned that in the 1980s, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered two decisions that recognized the secular, as well as religious, meaning of Christmas. As such, the law that grants Christmas a national holiday passes muster with the strictures laid down by the Supreme Court in its 1971 ruling, Lemon v. Kurtzman.
“But beyond the legalisms lies the real issue,” commented the league, namely “the determination of secular zealots to scrub our society clean of all religious influence. This represents not only a war against our heritage, it represents an authoritarian impulse to restructure our culture according to the dictates of devout atheists. In the end, what bothers these people is that those who believe in Christ have Christmas to celebrate while those like themselves have, by definition, nothing to celebrate.”
