Oh-Goody!! Yes, please, scrap all religious holidays, slap an additional couple days on my annual leave incorporating the so-called religious days and I’ll be as happy as a pig in muck.
Christian public holidays under scrutiny
2012-06-11 09:31
Johannesburg - The revision of public holidays, in particular Christian public holidays, will be a topic of discussion at public meetings arranged by the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities later in June, Beeld reported on Monday.
The public discussion meetings will take place in Gauteng, the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State, according to a statement from the commission.
A number of “complaints and requests” have been received by the commission, concerning the fact that SA’s public holidays only acknowledge Christianity and discriminate unfairly against other religions, the newspaper reported.
“According to its mandate, we received a number of complaints concerning the biased and unfair scheduling of the Public Holidays Act 36 of 1994,” the commission said in a statement.
The aim of the meetings is to encourage public participation and collate information to determine whether the current situation is discriminatory.
People wanting to make submissions should call 011-537-7600 or see information posted on www.crlcommission.org.za.
Yup, I have long thought that in a multi-religious country, a good solution may well be to give everyone a certain number of days off per year, which they can use for whatever religious or heathen holidays they please. Then we can all live in peace.
School are scheduled in semesters. It doesnt matter. Its the year-end summer holidays and xmas just happens to be smack in the middle of that six odd weeks of break. Easter usually falls during the first school break as well, so that one is sorted nicely too. And anyway, it will be chaos for only one or two years, and it will settle down nicely into a new secular routine.
The problem I foresee is that many people will stubbornly insist that certain religious holidays must be observed by everyone on a particular date because failing to do so is disrespectful. Just the other day a family of religious nuts started berating us about working in the garden on a Sunday. It’s not enough for such people that they are free to practice without interference as they see fit; they have to recruit the rest of the world into their delusions too.
I think all religious holidays should be banned forever. If employers want to give workers some extra days they should ask them to choose the observance days specific to their religious beliefs and then limit those to say 5 days a year. For atheists etc, give them an extra 5 days for whenever the FSM flies. In addition, the sale of alcohol should be permitted 7 days a week as we are supposed to be a secular country. Public holidays should be limited to days of national importance as South Africans (like Day of Reconciliation)We have 7 of those.
Good Friday
“Family day” - not sure anymore if this is/was a religious day (used to be Ascension day methinks?)
“Day or reconciliation” - used to be that Voortrekker promise day thingy on 16 Dec - probably more cultural than xtian although the promise to god was a biggie in my misspent youth.
Christmas day
Originally Good Monday was religious I think too. Probably to recover from the shock when Jesus disappeared from his tomb on the Sunday. Boxing Day was to remove boxes after Xmas me thinks but not a religious day.
I too was recently rebuked by a passer-by and his dog for mowing on the Sunday. So I checked the local by-laws and while cutting grass is not outright forbidden, it restricts mowing to shorter hours on Sundays (08h00 to 16h00) IIRC.
It wasn’t a long exchange. Dr 'Luthon64 told them we were Seventh Day Jewish Apostates and that we’d checked with the Great Calendar in the Sky about it being okay to do some gardening. They just stared blankly before going on their way, presumably to correct the errant ways of more comprehensible victims.
Remove all religious holidays from the calendar. “Family day” is attached to Easter, so must be regarded as religious, so give everyone 4 days to take whenever they please.
All secular holidays should be moved to the nearest Friday or Monday; midweek holidays are ridiculously inconvenient and damage the economy disproportionately.
Remove pinko commie holidays like “wekkahs day” and replace them with something more appropriate to our nation, like “sitting-around-doing-bugger-all-except-taking-bribes day”.
4.Remove ageist and sexist holidays, or make them equitable. If we must have “womens’ day”, then we must have a “mens’ day” as well, or get rid of it. Same goes for “yoof day”–where the hell is “old farts’ day”?
Agreed with this, the feminist agenda has gone all cock-eyed. Its supposed to be about equality, not elevation, its sexist in itself at this point of time. While we’re at it, lets chuck out all the commercial “celebratory” days out too, this bullshit of having a Mother’s/Father’s day is rubbish, ditto with valentine’s day.
