Like everyone I kinda like public holidays as they add to my vacation entitlement. The more the merrier I say. A world leader, I think, with regard to public holidays is probably South Africa. The country not only celebrates human rights, women's and other days, but also every religious holiday you can reasonably conjure up. There's a religion celebrating bits and pieces of their God related fairy tales, there's a public holiday to be had in South Africa. And don't remind me of Christianity inspired holidays. In Germany, where I grew up, we had more of them than you'd want to know about.
This makes no sense at all! Public holidays are just that, holidays to be celebrated by all of us, not by some of us who happen to celebrate one God or another. So, public holidays should sensibly express a given countries civic values, like 'human rights', 'freedom', 'equality', 'diversity' or whatever else is considered to be important by the country. Religious views necessarily belong in the private sphere. So, there is no good reason for why I, an agnostic, or my Muslim or Buddhist friends should have to put up with Christianity inspired public holidays. The same holds true for Christians in countries predominantly Muslim etc.
The state's proper role with regard to religion should be neutrality. Forcing all and sundry to celebrate particular religious events by way of forcing us to take time off work does not make any sense at all.
If someone wants to take time off to celebrate Xmas, I say, they should take leave and let the rest of us get on with our work. The same is true for Eid or any other excuse not to work. It's completely fine for a religious person to celebrate such events, but the state surely has no role at all to play with regard to them.
