Happy belated Martin Luther King Jr. Day! I hope you all enjoyed your day off, Monday. As nice as it is to get out of school on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, though, it seems that there is another day this semester that would be more useful to have off. That day is April 13 — the day after Easter.

Because Easter is arguably the most important Christian holiday, because it celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ, a large number of students at Iowa State get together with their families on that day. Since Easter is always celebrated on a Sunday, many students — especially those who live far away — must leave festivities early if they want to make it to class the following day.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day, on the other hand, is celebrated by considerably fewer, if any students. This is not to underwrite the accomplishments of Dr. King. It just isn’t a holiday that people typically go home specifically to celebrate.

But, unlike Easter, Martin Luther King Jr. Day isn’t a Christian holiday, which means that a public university like Iowa State can feel OK giving people the day off. This thought process spawns from the idea of the separation of church and state. However, there is no such thing.

Nowhere in the Constitution is the separation of church and state mentioned. It is simply an idea created by misinterpreting the “freedom of religion” clause of the First Amendment, which says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

Giving a day off to students when many of them have family obligations the previous day is in no way an establishment of a religion, nor does it prohibit anyone from exercising their religion. It is simply a convenience to many students. And I would find it very hard to believe that even most non-Christian students would complain about getting out of classes for a day.

It seems that many people interpret freedom of religion — which means that you are free to practice whichever religion you choose, to mean freedom from religion  — which means that you should never have to so much as acknowledge that any religion even exists, much less have it affect you in any way.

The First Amendment was never intended to imply state institutions could not make decisions based on religion, only that they cannot force others to. As John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Blake Hasenmiller is a senior in industrial engineering from DeWitt.