California Democratic Assemblyman Matt Haney has announced a bill that would recognize two Muslim holy days, Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, as state holidays.
According to Haney, “No student should have to choose between celebrating one of the holiest days in their faith and showing up to school, and no worker should feel they have to sacrifice their religious observance.”
The proposal follows the Hindu holiday of Diwali becoming a California state holiday starting this year. It is unclear why a proliferation of state-recognized holidays from different cultures is necessary, rather than affected students simply requesting days off.
Currently, Christmas is the only state-recognized Christian holiday on the California calendar. The Jewish holidays of Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah are not state-recognized, which has historically not been an issue, since students are able to request time off.
The push for California to recognize both Eid holidays is the logical conclusion of incessant “diversity is our strength” messaging, where Democratic politicians don’t particularly care about the substance behind religious holidays, only about recognizing every possible subgroup. It’s of a piece with the general balkanization of American culture. In the past, the country was recognized as a Christian nation, with religious minorities able to celebrate their customs as well. Now, under liberal thinking, it is wrong to “privilege” any religious holiday over another, the result being that the entire concept is diluted by handing out holidays to any racial or religious groups that demand them.
In announcing the proposal, Assemblyman Haney stuck to this robotic human-resources liberal script almost exactly, saying, “This is how we show, truly, that we are inclusive, that we value diversity, we celebrate diversity […]” In the absence of any uniting common morality or shared culture, endlessly chasing “diversity” becomes liberal politicians’ north star.
Of course, the idea that Democrats simply aim to put all religious holidays on equal footing is questionable, given that this is the same party that regularly blames white, straight Christian men as the font of all evil, and regularly invokes that we are on “stolen” Indian land. More amusingly, as the Democratic voter base becomes increasingly anti-Israeli, it will be interesting to see if the Jewish and Muslim organizations in the coalition are able to peacefully coexist. Hopefully, rather than diversity being their strength, it leads to some irreconcilable differences.
