Is he the grinch who wants to "steal Christmas"? Richard Ganulin is the man behind a legal challenge which could become a seminal First Amendment case in American history -- or a legal debacle that goes nowhere.

o some, Richard Ganulin is the grinch who wants to steal Christmas.

    Others want to include the 46-year old attorney under the category of "kook."

    But none of the name calling seems to be discouraging Ganulin from fighting what could emerge as one of the most significant First Amendment battles in US legal history, on par with other cases which helped to end mandatory prayer and bible recitation, or abolished a religious test for holding public office. Ganulin wants to abolish part of the United States Code (5 USC 6103) which establishes Christmas Day -- December 25-- as a national legal public holiday, and closes down most government offices and services. On August 4, 1998, Ganulin filed a federal lawsuit in US District court, claiming that "Christmas is a religious holiday, and the Congress of the United States is not constitutionally permitted to endorse or aid any religion, purposefully or otherwise, or entanglement between our government and religious beliefs."

    Ganulin, who is a solicitor for the City of Cincinnati but filed his suit as a private individual, says that he is not challenging "Christmas itself."

    "This isn't about the right of people to celebrate or not celebrate Christmas," Ganulin recently told AANEWS. "I'm concerned about the endorsement of a particular religious belief which occurs when government declares what is clearly an important religious celebration and makes it an official holiday which federal employees and others have to recognize."

    Instead of an official government holiday, Ganulin proposes a system where federal employees would have the option of taking December 25 off. People could still put up Christmas trees, give gifts, sing songs, and do anything else to celebrate the day as a private affair.

    Ganulin certainly has a point, at least when you examine the list of federal holidays. The US Code, the compendium of federal laws delineates ten government holidays and their dates: they include New Year's Day, the birthday of Martin Luther King, Washington's birthday, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas. The section being challenged by Ganulin delves into the excruciating details of how these holidays affect the pay and schedules of federal employees; it says nothing about the First Amendment, and appears on the surface to treat Christmas as "just another" secular holiday.

   Clearly, though, Christmas is the only federal holiday that does indeed possess a religious component. It is also the only religious observance in America which is accorded the status of being a government-recognized holiday, unlike Easter, Good Friday, or the Jewish Rosh Hashanah. And the US Code regulations concerning the celebration of Christmas as a legal holiday are mirrored throughout the states as well. Alabama has the distinction of being the first state to declare Christmas as a legal holiday, doing so in 1836. By 1907, Oklahoma rounded out the list of then-states by enacting a declaration of its own.

    Christmas is among the most important of the Christian religious holidays, and commemorates the alleged birth of Jesus Christ. Biblical scholars, historians, even astronomers have debated the historicity of Jesus, and even tried to explain the accounts of his birth which appear in two books of the New Testament. And like clockwork every year, newspapers and the popular electronic media inevitably deal with the question "What was the Star of Bethlehem," and find answers in everything from the alignment of planets to a possible UFO.

    The modern day celebration of Christmas, though, is an amalgam of religious belief, pagan customs and commercial ambition. The December 25 date was not observed by the early Christian church until the 4th century, when the religion achieved political and cultural hegemony throughout the remnants of the old Roman Empire. Church fathers began melding their own teachings, rituals and symbols with those of earlier pagan practices. Indeed, some ecclesiastical officials like Origen (245 c.e.) even protested the very notion of celebrate a birthday for Jesus. The idea spread, however, and soon the distinct Christian mythos of Christ's miraculous birth was being fused with earlier pagan symbols and rituals which celebrated the Winter Solstice, that time when the sun reaches its lowest point in the annual apparent journey throughout the sky.

    Contemporary symbols identified with Christmas, including the evergreen tree, date to the 17th century in France and Germany. Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, introduced the Christmas tree custom to Britain in 1841; the custom was then transmitted to the United States, where it fitted in with the Dutch celebration of St. Nicholas' Day on December 6. Nicholas was a 4th century Catholic bishop, who was anointed by the church as the patron saint of a wide constituency including the country of Russia, thieves, virgins, mariners and children. According to legend, he rescued three impoverished maidens from a life of selling themselves to men by throwing purses of money through their windows, thus giving rise to the idea of gift giving. St. Nicholas transmogrified into the red-garbed man who delivers presents to children, Santa Claus, a Dutch modification of "Sinterklaas" and "Sint Nikolaas."

    In his amended complaint filed on December 27, 1998 in US District Court, Ganulin cites a number of legal protections including the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, Equal Protection and Freedom of Association. They enjoin the government from "establishing" a religious belief or practice, "aiding one class of citizens based upon their religion or their culture," and "imposing particular Christian religious or Christian cultural beliefs on the citizens of the nation." He also argues that "the government is strictly precluded from acting in a way that has the effect of preferring or aiding one religion or culture over all others and also may not act in a way that has the effect of preferring or aiding religious beliefs, generally, over nonreligious beliefs..." From there, it is for Mr. Ganulin a simply but complete syllogism -- "The establishment of Christmas Day -- December 25 as a national legal public holiday effectively endorses one set of Christian religious and Christian cultural beliefs..."

   The US Supreme Court has never ruled on the constitutionality of the Christmas holiday, although lower courts have. The most recent case, METZL v. LEININGER (1995), acknowledged that while Christmas was indeed religion in its origins, it and Thanksgiving had "lost their religious connotation in the eyes of the general public that government measures to promote them, as by making them holidays or even by having the government itself celebrate them, have only a trivial effect in promoting religion." That same reasoning is often cited in cases involving nativity creches or other religious icons or symbols which are displayed on public property; when blended with other "secular" symbols, their religious appeal is supposedly diluted. Ganulin insists, though, that these conclusions are based less on constitutional rigor than they are "bogus" musings and opinions. Other religious practices as well have been found permissible by courts, including the use of "In God We Trust" on coins, public financing of chaplains in the military, and in some cases limited financial aid to religious schools. While separationists see this as a dangerous "wedge" in Jefferson's Wall of Separation, decisions which uphold those practices could be an insurmountable hurdle to Mr. Ganulin's arguments, no matter how well reasoned they might be.

   Richard Ganulin is "going to war with over 200 years of tradition," charges William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Civil Rights. The combative Donohue, whose group recently picketed a Broadway play that allegedly depicted Jesus Christ as a homosexual, added that that Mr. Ganulin was "mean spirited" and wanted "to strip us of all our cultural heritage." The American Civil Liberties Union has distanced itself from Ganulin's case, saying that it is doubtful it will succeed.

    Even so, some people are taking Richard Ganulin seriously. The Beckett Fund, a "religious liberty" advocacy group, has jumped into the fray, and is representing three federal employees who want Ganulin's suit dismissed. Their countersuit argues that Ganulin has "suffered no injury" and therefore lacks sufficient standing, and that they would be injured since they celebrate Christmas by spending the day at church services and with family. Beckett Fund has represented the City of Jersey City, NJ in its attempt to display a Jewish menorah and Christian creche in front of the city hall. The group also filed an amicus brief in defense of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act which was struck down in the historic BOERNE v. FLORES decision.

   Meanwhile, Richard Ganulin's case is winding its way through the legal process. "I'm not trying to have Christmas declared illegal or outlawed," he told us. "The fact remains that if we are a nation which uphold the principle of the separation of church and state, though, that means that we can't have the government endorsing any religion like Christianity by making its holy days a federal holiday."

And is he the grinch who would steal Christmas from millions of federal employees? Not really. If he wins, federal workers would not automatically have the day off. "They would have to take a vacation day, or work out some other arrangement," says Mr. Ganulin "just like Hindus and Moslems do." He also recognizes that Christmas would probably be widely celebrated as time off from the job, and a holiday with powerful commercial trappings. "If we're going to be fair and uphold the constitution," says Ganulin, "we should realize that Christmas is a religious holiday, that it commemorates a religious event, and that it has religious origins."

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