Radical secularism?

Rush just read a story about Stonybrooke College in New York. Apparently, because this college has a 10% Muslim student body and a 5% Hindu body, the school is no longer going to "cancel classes" for Christian or Jewish holidays - holy days - except for Christmas, which they are going to keep up only because it is in the Union contract of the professors.

In the first place, I wonder why they don't just add on the Muslim and Hindu holidays, rather than getting rid of the Christian and Jewish ones.

When *I* was going to school - and I was an atheist at that time as now - I loved those holidays because..hey...I didn't have to go to school. Why would Muslims and Hindus not want days off from school? If they want to learn on those days - let 'em learn at home or in their dorm rooms without all the distractions of the classroom!

I wonder why the school made the decision - did Muslims and/or Hindus complain that they should get their days off too? What days off do they even get? Muslims apparently have Ramadan, a whole month where they are not supposed to eat or drink until sundown - and Muslim athletes have long been accommodated in that regard.

Rush described this as a spread of "radical secularism."

And it's certainly true that until he read this story I had never thought much about those holidays we got off that were related to the Christian religion. I guess I hadn't thought much about "good Friday" - it meant nothing to me, it was just a day when I didn't have to go to school. There are so many "Monday" holidays for no other reason than that the government employees wanted the day off (President's Day, Martin Luther King, and son on.) Then there's Veteran's Day, the meaning of which has now pretty much been lost....

And it raises an interesting point. It is important that the US be secular - I don't want somebody telling me I have to go to church every Sunday or close my eyes for prayer at such and such a time every day, or have to wear a scarf on my head all the time to signify my submission to some mythical diety - on the other hand, should those people who are religious be barred from doing their little superstitions, since they apparently mean so much to those folks?

Apparently Stonybrooke is the only college yet to do this...we'll see how it plays out.