I really would like to get people's feedback and comments on this one.
The other day I had a discussion with two liberal coworkers about high school sports. Apparently it's a law (or at least a high school sports association policy) in Alaska that they can't have any sports games or championships on Sunday. My two friends were telling me that it is discriminatory to other religions that have their holy days on Friday or Saturday. Their argument was that all days should be open for sports activities, and that way it would be most fair. By catering to the Christian majority, they argued, it is tyranny of the majority.
I brought up the idea that these sorts of things can't be all things for all people, but they might as well be as much as they can for as many people as possible. They said that by not catering to anyone they are being everything for everyone. I thought that was an interesting spin. By being nothing for anyone, they are claiming to be everything for everyone.
They threw in an additional argument that it wasn't fair for kids that they had known of in some rural towns whose board of education wouldn't allow sports teams to compete in local and state competitions on Sunday, which made it unfair for students who didn't believe the same way. This was a red herring, though, because we were talking about state-wide mandates, not local policies.
Does a state government have the constitutional right to cater to a particular religion? Is there a difference between establishment and catering? Does "freedom of religion" mean "freedom from religion?" Did the founders intend for there to be a complete absence of religious considerations in the public discourse?
