The Freedom From Religion Foundation strongly objects to South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden’s decision to grant administrative leave to all state employees for Good Friday and Easter Monday while explicitly urging them to “celebrate the resurrection of our good Lord.”
FFRF was contacted by a nonreligious state employee who found the governor’s March 21 email announcing the decision exclusionary and alienating. The email was sent to all state employees granting administrative leave for Good Friday and Easter Monday. Rhoden stated that he hopes state employees will “spend time with those [they] love as [they] celebrate the resurrection of our good Lord.”
The governor’s announcement assumes all state employees are Christian and turns those who do not believe in the resurrection of Jesus into outsiders in their own workplace, FFRF points out.
“We urge you to immediately refrain from including religious messaging in official communications as governor and to ensure that the state does not grant administrative leave in observance of a specific religion’s holy days,” writes FFRF legal counsel Chris Line. “Government neutrality on matters of religion is essential to upholding the constitutional principles of church-state separation and ensuring that all South Dakota employees are equally respected.”
While it is common for some government offices to close on widely observed holidays, explicitly tying official leave to a religious event — especially in a way that urges state employees to participate in a specific faith practice — crosses a constitutional line.
The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently ruled that the government cannot show favoritism toward religion, FFRF emphasizes. Gov. Rhoden disregards legal precedent by using his official position to promote Christianity. He needlessly marginalizes state employees who are a part of the 37 percent of the U.S. population that is non-Christian, including the nearly one in three Americans who are religiously unaffiliated.
“The government has no business telling employees to ‘celebrate the resurrection,’” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Gov. Rhoden should focus on governing for all South Dakotans, not pushing religious doctrine and making non-Christian employees feel like second-class citizens.”
FFRF has requested a formal response from Gov. Rhoden outlining how his office plans to address this concern.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with nearly 42,000 members nationwide, including members in South Dakota. FFRF’s purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between church and state, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
