I went onto the Virgin Active website this evening to try and find a club that was close to where I have an early meeting tomorrow and came across this statement -
Please note that all Virgin Active Clubs are closed on both Christmas Day & Good Friday.
I would like to take them on about this and would like to get some ideas of what you think I should put in the letter. I would like to keep it diplomatic and just ask them why they don't close on any of the other religions "special" days? What about a day for the non-theists - Darwin day perhaps? Bearing in mind they will probably come back with a response like, "the majority of South Africans...." or something like that.
In my opinion, they should either stay open all the time or they should take time off equally for every religion. I think the first option is less offensive to everyone.
With the latter option, they’d hardly ever be open…
I also think that their justification will include something along the lines of optimally catering to people of all creeds, bearing in mind majority wishes and that the two holidays in question have in many ways lost their religious significance and become social conventions. If so, the question arises why they remain open on various secular holidays.
If on the other hand their policies are defended on religious grounds, perhaps you should point out to them that, if certain religionists are to be believed, they are damning themselves and their clients by breaking the Sabbath.
BTW, the Muslim version of the gym is 72 Virgins Inactive.
'Luthon64
They will definately come back with a statement like: “The majority of South Africans…”
It sounds like it is a pure business decision. Why pay staff overtime / double time on days when most people are unlikely to support the local gym.
I must however agree with you. Why specifically these days? Why not new year’s day and during the entire month of Ramadaan? Add all the other religious and national holidays, not forgetting national potato day etc.
We might be able to go to gym on the 1st of April, but according to Psalm 14:1 this is universal Atheist day, so they will have to close their business permanently. 
“72 Virgins Inactive” 24/7/365 (haha)
I completely agree, this is most likely the reason. But it may be silly to label the days as “Christmas day” and “Good Friday”. Christmas day can be directly referred to by date which is (arguably) a clearer reference. As for that slippery spring equinox festival, I mean spring sacrifice, I mean Christian holy day; the date is shifting so calling it “Good Friday” (as the Government does) may be the clearest way to refer to the occasion.
And as a side note, if they want to start taking-off religious holidays based on attendance then we must send the word out to boycot gyms on this holiest of days, Talk Like a Pirate Day, 19 September. I’d love to see the gym add a notice that the gym will be closed on “Taak Loik u Poirit Day”. I somehow think that the reference in this case would be to the date, and by doing so their religious bias is revealed.
… oh yes …
Aaarrr matey.
Aye, ye be right there matey. Arrr!
But we Pastafarians are used to being discriminated against
btw, December 25 is also Newton day 
I think they are just doing the maths on the bottom line, the majority of this country professes a belief or claim to be christian. They want those days set aside as public holidays and therefor they are. If we were in a majority muslim or Jewish
run country we would have other days/hours set aside as national holidays.
The tyrany of the majority will win out in some matters, it could always be worse and we could be living in denmark http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_holidays_in_Denmark
I suggest we call for the celebration of ALL Church holidays as per the middle ages.
Lets see how far a Christian business association gets when they realize theres only around
100 - 160 valid work days in a year if you take in all the Catholic holidays from this time alone…
I predict that they will honor the words of their triumvirate god and put the money first just like the good book says they will.
I also predict that they will claim the argument that the new testament abolished the laws of the old testament so as Christians your no longer stuck following all those stupid bronze age laws when they disagree…
Oh except the one about church on sunday, oh and tithing thats the most important one I think, they repeat that one far more often then the love of god, atonement for sins or killing people for picking up wood on a Saturday.
“If the King’s English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it’s good enough for the children of Texas!” - Ma Ferguson Governor of Texas (circa 1920)
As an ex employee of Virgin Active I can inform you from a non-skeptical position. When I was working for Virgin, only on Xmas day were the clubs closed. The reason is that it is a pointless and expensive exercise to keep clubs open nationally on a day (or now days) when two or three of your die-hard, single-brain-celled, muscle-bunnies with no family are the only people who turn up for a period of seventeen hours, in most places.
Virgin, as a company, is as irreligious as you can get. You will not see so much as a feather decorating the clubs in celebration of said holidays. Individuals’ religions have nothing to do with the business and staff, of many and various cultural backgrounds, are entitled to take their annual leave as and when it suits them, on religious occasions or not.
The original comment seems to be a far more vivid and unholy demonstration of the speakers OWN religious intolerance than any guilt on an inanimate gymnasium’s part.
Thanks Matilda7 for your response. It is great to see commitment to a previous employer - it would have been their loss that you no longer are an employee. However, I think you missed the point of what I was saying which is shown by your last comment -
On the contrary, my original comments are the exact opposite of “religious intolerance”. As I pointed out -
What I meant by that is that religions should get fair representation or should not come into the picture at all. Either option would be fair if all religions are taken into account; this would not be very practical and would result in the gyms not opening at all. You did however, confirm exactly what my point was with this comment -
I am a little new to logical fallacies in an arguement, but with my limited experience I know there are a few here. Within the context of the discussion should your sentence not read “die-hard, single-brain-celled, muscle-bunny Jews/Muslims/Hindus/Buddhists/Pagans/etc.”?
I think the point Matilda7 is making is that those days aren’t chosen by VA for religious reasons, but for practical reasons. If they were chosen for religious reasons, then sure, they should include other religious holidays days as well, but since it appears not to be the case, I don’t see a problem.
Surely VA is just reacting to the fact that people chose to do something else on christmas day, since the bulk of the public choose to make those days special, not VA…
I suppose you’re both right. I will just have to sit around the pool having fun with my wife and kids on Newton Day, and stop aiming to be such a “die-hard, single-brain-celled, muscle-bunny”.