City renames 2 holidays deemed culturally insensitive

The city of Bloomington, Indiana, has renamed Good Friday and Columbus Day because the names imply a cultural insensitivity, according to the Bloomington Herald-Times.

The new, more politically-correct names will help make the holidays more inclusive, the mayor said.

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The change was made Friday by Mayor John Hamilton, who sent a memo to city employees.

"We are terrifically proud of our diverse workforce at the city," Hamilton wrote. "That diversity makes us stronger and more representative of the public we proudly serve. These updated names for two days of well-merited time off is another way we can demonstrate our commitment to inclusivity."

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The Herald-Times reports that "all city employees receive paid time off for Columbus Day, a federal holiday ... and Good Friday, the Friday before Easter Sunday. In the future, the city will be calling these paid days off 'Fall Holiday' and 'Spring Holiday.'"

Good Friday is not a federal holiday but is observed by many Christians as the day Jesus Christ was crucified by the Romans.

Columbus Day is a federal holiday noting the arrival of the Italian explorer in the Americas, on Oct. 12, 1492. Columbus Day has come under fire from liberals who claim the discovery of the Americas by Europeans led to centuries of oppression of Native Americans.

Dissing and dismantling the holiday became more a left-wing cause when the late Howard Zinn, a political science professor at Boston University, spent the first chapter of his 1980 book, "A People's History of the United States," flaying Columbus.

"To emphasize the heroism of Columbus and his successors as navigators and discoverers, and to de-emphasize their genocide, is not a technical necessity but an ideological choice. It serves -- unwittingly -- to justify what was done," Zinn wrote in his celebrated left-wing tome.

The news likely does not come as a surprise to residents of the city of Bloomington. The city and surrounding Monroe County -- thanks mostly to the presence of Indiana University -- are overwhelmingly liberal. The county gave Clinton 58.6 percent of the vote -- almost a 14,000-vote margin over Trump.

The news of Bloomington's Columbus Day erasure came the same day that Columbus Eastern High School defeated Bloomington High School South.

Columbus, Indiana -- the home to Gov. Mike Pence, now the vice president-elect -- is Bloomington's eastern neighbor. It was so named in 1821.