Can We All Just Get Along?

I flipped through Fox when Bill was foaming at the mouth over this. Sorry, but if a community has enough people of one faith, I think local holidays can be adjusted accordingly.

On the October 27 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly called the idea of closing public schools for the observance of Muslim holidays 'absurd in a Judeo-Christian country.' O'Reilly made this remark during a discussion with Hillsborough County, Florida, commissioner Brian Blair, who opposed the Hillsborough County school board's decision to keep public schools open on Yom Kippur and Good Friday during the 2006-2007 school year, a departure from the school district's earlier practice of closing schools on those days. In December 2004, Hillsborough County Muslims, with the backing of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, asked the school board to close schools on the Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Fitr, which marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Instead of giving students the day off on Eid Al-Fitr, the school board voted to keep schools open on Yom Kippur and Good Friday during the 2006-2007 school year, reasoning that the school district could close schools on days when a substantial number of students would be absent but could not close schools specifically for the observance of religious holidays. The school district will continue its practice of allowing students to take days off on religious holidays, although schools will remain open.
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Bill needs to wake up to the fact that no matter what this country was founded upon, 200+ years later the cultural landscape has changed and we must change with it. I find it perfectly acceptable (particularly since there are probably more Muslims than Jews in America) for at least one Muslim holiday to be acknowledged. Christianity, Judaism and Islam are all branches of the same Abrahamic tree. I know we can all get along!