South Dakota governor gives employees time off to "celebrate the resurrection" of Jesus

Gov. Larry Rhoden told state workers they could have two days off to honor his religion

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South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden recently told state employees that they could take Good Friday and the Monday after Easter off work. And then, as if to hammer home the reason he was doing it, he told employees to “celebrate the resurrection of our good Lord,” suggesting that Christianity is now the official religion for everyone.

South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden (screenshot via YouTube)

Rhoden, who took over the job after former governor Kristi Noem became the Secretary of Homeland Security and took up cosplaying as a full-time job, wrote all this in an email sent to employees on Friday, March 21, a month before the holiday. The Freedom From Religion Foundation obtained a copy of it.

FFRF attorney Chris Line points out the obvious: Not everyone who works for the state is Christian, and it’s blatantly unethical, in addition to being illegal, to pretend otherwise:

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. 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.

…

We respectfully urge you to immediately refrain from including sectarian messaging in official communications and to ensure that the state does not grant administrative leave in observance of a particular religion’s holy days or instruct its employees to “celebrate the resurrection.” Upholding a clear separation between religion and government is essential to preserving the religious liberty of all South Dakotans, including those who are nonreligious or adhere to faiths other than Christianity.

If Rhoden wanted to give everyone those days off, no one was stopping him. He could easily have called it a long weekend to enjoy the spring. But just as public school districts have winter breaks (as opposed to Christmas vacations) and spring breaks (as opposed to Easter Break), all he had to do was find a secular justification for what he was doing even if the goal was to placate the religious majority. He crossed the line as soon as he said the only reason he was giving everyone a day off was to celebrate his personal religious holiday.

Is it the most egregious thing he’s done? Not at all. Just this month, Rhoden signed into law a bill allowing “concealed pistols in bars and on public college campuses” and another banning transgender people from using the correct public bathrooms. Christian Nationalism is the guiding force for his legislative agenda; it’s no wonder he assumes everyone in government agrees with his faith. He’s used to living in a bubble.

Incidentally, more than 20% of the people in South Dakota are not Christians, with most of those people having no religious affiliation at all. Hell, FFRF learned about the email only because a state employee passed it along to them. So the idea that everyone’s Christian and celebrates Easter is grossly exaggerated.

But it’s not a safe time for any of those employees to speak out given the increased likelihood of conservative Christian zealots to punish those who criticize them. After all, they follow the lead of their lord and savior Donald Trump. So kudos to FFRF for bringing this to light.

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