Tuesday, April 20, 1999
Good Friday closing allowed
Kenton County now calls it spring holiday
BY BEN L. KAUFMAN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Good Friday — the commemoration of Jesus' crucifixion — has become so secular that closing Kenton County offices and courts does not violate the First Amendment, a federal court said Monday.
Similarly, setting the annual spring holiday to coincide with Good Friday does not violate church-state separation, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit added.
“Holidays are established for the convenience of citizens,” Judge Danny J. Boggs wrote for the 2-1 majority, “and that convenience often is caused by indi vidual motivations that may be a mix of secular and religious.”
Finally, Judge Boggs wrote, Kenton County officials “have done all they can to prevent any impression that they are endorsing religion in closing their building and offices for a Spring Holiday on the Friday before Easter.”
Scott Greenwood, an attorney who filed the suit, said he would seriously consider asking the entire 6th Circuit to overturn Monday's decision by the three-judge panel. “It's wrong on how it applies the endorsement test.”
Failing that, Mr. Greenwood said, he might ask the U.S. Supreme Court, hoping the split among circuit courts would prompt the justices to take on the issue.
Kenton County Attorney Garry Edmondson said the ruling vindicated county officials. “My argument was that it's just the beginning of spring break, and therefore it's spring holiday.”
Mr. Edmondson was optimistic that any further appeals would be rejected or decided in the county's favor.
How clear the precedent will be is unknown: Judges Harry W. Wellford and Karen Nelson Moore also wrote opinions.
Judge Wellford agreed with Judge Boggs; Judge Moore sided with church-state separatists who said Good Friday closings are an unconstitutional establishment of the Christian faith.
Covington lawyers Michael J. Granzeier and Michelle Blankenship and Heidi B. Sahrbacker, assistant director of a nonprofit housing agency, brought the suit in 1996.
It responded to signs that showed Jesus on the cross, with blood flowing from his wounds, stating: “Kenton County offices will be closed for observance of Good Friday Friday April 5, 1996.”
The trio asked U.S. District Judge William O. Bertelsman to end the Good Friday closing — whether all day or half day — because it shut them out when they had business with the county.
Mr. Greenwood said the signs and closings also had “the purpose and effect of establishing religion in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment” and Kentucky Constitution.
In February 1997, Judge Bertelsman barred such signs as unconstitutional, but he allowed Good Friday closings, which, by then, had been renamed “Spring Holiday.”
Monday's majority affirmed Judge Bertelsman on signs and closings.
Judge Boggs said the county offered “credible evidence that Good Friday has become a day with secular effects in Northern Kentucky: “Many school children are on Spring vacation the following week and many Kentucky families start their vacations early, on Friday.”
Judge Boggs concluded that no reasonable observer would see the closing as a forbidden government endorsement of religion.
Judge Wellford said the now-banned Christian signs did not “permanently taint the setting of a spring holiday on the weekend of Easter.”
Judge Moore called Good Friday “a purely religious holiday” and said the county showed “no legitimate secular purpose.”
Cindy Schroeder contributed to this story.
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