BY JOHN HOPKINS
The Cincinnati Enquirer
A Cincinnati attorney is suing the United States, challenging Christmas as a legal holiday.
Christmas is a religious event, attorney Richard Ganulin argues in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, and establishing it as a public holiday violates the separation of church and state.
Mr. Ganulin wants the court to bar the government from enforcing the statute that makes Christmas a public holiday.
"Only someone who's mean-spirited would want to strip us of our cultural heritage," said William Donohue, president of the Catholic League in Washington, D.C. "And he's not going to win."
Mr. Ganulin insists he's no scrooge.
"This is not a challenge to Christmas itself," he said. "It just seeks to separate the power of the state from beliefs and practices that are a matter of individual consciousness."
Mr. Ganulin said he does not celebrate Christmas or the birth of Jesus Christ and is damaged by the government-established holiday. A law enacted in September 1966 made Christmas and nine other days public holidays.
Mr. Donohue sees the lawsuit as the work of a "zealot."
"What this man is doing is going to war with over 200 years of tradition," he said. "There's not a Supreme Court justice in 200 years who has ever found this to be problematic."
Challenges to the separation of church and state occur often, with debate centering on topics from "In God We Trust" on U.S. currency to Bible readings by astronauts in space.
"It's a continual battle," said Howard Tolley, a University of Cincinnati political science professor.
Mr. Tolley said he could not imagine the court finding the holiday unconstitutional.
