The ACLU prefers Cuomo's faith as the

official calendar faith of the State of New York.  NY Const. Art. 1, Sec. 3 is of no use to the citizens of NY and the ACLU is nowhere to be found. Cross them off the list as they remain silent on Nassau OTB, a public benefit corporation, closing on Roman Catholic Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday in preference to Greek Orthodox Easter Sunday and Palm Sunday.

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Thanks for the help. The item’s below. I’d be happy to mail you a copy, if you give me a mailing address.

Claude Solnik

(631) 913-4244

Long Island Business News

2150 Smithtown Ave.

Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348 

Home > LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays

Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012

Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.

Judge Rules Against Cross on U.S. Land

By IAN LOVETT

Published: December 12, 2013

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LOS ANGELES — A federal judge ruled Thursday that a cross on federal land in San Diego violated the First Amendment ban on a government endorsement of religion and ordered it removed within 90 days.

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But the quarter-century fight over the 29-foot cross atop Mount Soledad may not be over. The judge said he would stay the order if there was an appeal. The case has wound through the courts since the 1980s, while the cross has become emblematic of the national debate over the place of religion in public life.

After a previous cross at the site was knocked down in a windstorm, the current cross was erected on city property in 1954 by the Mount Soledad Memorial Association, a veterans’ group, who called it a monument to Korean War veterans. In 1989, Philip K. Paulson, a Vietnam War veteran and an atheist, sued the City of San Diego to have the cross removed, and the case has remained in court ever since.

Supporters of the cross have argued that it remains a war memorial, not a religious symbol, even though few if any commemorations of war victims were at the site until after Mr. Paulson’s lawsuit.

The federal government seized the land on which the cross sits through eminent domain in 2006 as part of an effort to save the cross.

But in 2011, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled the cross violated the First Amendment ban. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case last year, sending it back to the trial court.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs celebrated Thursday’s ruling. They said no one wanted the cross destroyed, and hoped the federal government would now negotiate to move it elsewhere.

“This is a win for religious liberty,” said Daniel Mach, who argued the case for the American Civil Liberties Union. “The government can and should honor those who served and died for this country, but not by playing favorites with faiths.”

Supporters of the cross indicated they planned to appeal.