Generalized grievances

Some time back (okay, it's been six years), a man named Hezekiah Israel filed a lawsuit against the United States government in the federal district court in Indiana. At that time, we reported on this lawsuit, which literally had just been filed, and promised an update. Well, a few years later, here we are.

The lawsuit came to light because Mr. Israel, evidently confident of impending victory, distributed copies to various federal offices around the country. As he explained in a cover letter, “You are being sent a copy of the attached complaint because if an order for the Plaintiff's requested relief is issued, it will replace the calendar that you, your sub-agencies, departments, or schools use on a daily basis, as well as how you call and refer to the days of the week.” He ends the letter with a cheery, “Thank you, and have a great day!!”

Yes, Mr. Israel was unhappy about the names of the months and the days of the week. And why was he so unhappy? Glad you asked.

“The United States has a custom and usage of calling and referring to the days of the week after pagan false gods and idols,” he explained, and then proceeded to list them: Sunday, of course, is named after the sun, Monday after the moon, Saturday after Saturn, and several of the days after Norse gods, such as Thursday, which is named after Thor. He added a few extra facts about each; for example, not only is Thursday a variation on “Thor's Day,” or “Day of Thor,” but it is “also known as the pagan false god and idol Jupiter.”

Actually, in English the names are obscured a bit because of the little-known Norse gods whose names grace days like Tuesday (“Tiw's Day”) or Friday (“Frigg's Day”). Thor has gotten much better press thanks to comic books and movie about a guy in a Viking helmet carrying a big hammer.

But if one turns to Spanish or any other Romance language, the connection between the five planets known in antiquity and the days of the week becomes pretty clear. In those languages, there is also a Sun's Day and Moon's Day, and then unmistakably planetary names — in Spanish, Martes, Miercoles, Jueves, (Mars' Day, Mercury's Day, Jove's Day) and so on.

Mr. Israel's main concern (there were some unrelated complaints in his lawsuit about an eviction case he had filed in Indiana state court) was that, by using these names, the U.S. government paid homage to “false gods and idols.” The same was true of the months of the year, some of which are named after Greek or Roman gods and goddesses. January, for example, is named after Janus, a two-headed god who looked both to the past and future; Mars shows up again with March.

Mr. Israel — whose own full name, Hezekiah Isaiah Israel had some, shall we say, Biblical origins — explained in his lawsuit that, “The Plaintiff . . . holds fast, believes, and obeys strongly in a commandment stated in the book commonly known as `The Bible,' which states from Exodus 23:13, `And in all things that I have said unto you be circumspect: and MAKE NO MENTION OF THE NAME OF OTHER GODS, NEITHER LET IT BE HEARD OUT OF THY MOUTH.'” He explained how he lost those other lawsuits in the Indiana courts because he refused “to speak these pagan named days of the week” in that eviction case.

Well, yes. Trying to prove when someone's rent was in due probably is a lot more complicated when you can't bring yourself to say “Friday” or “January.”

While this kind of silliness is usually fodder for ballot measures in states like California, Mr. Israel actually had a surprisingly reasonable alternative: just number the days of the week from 1 to 7 (“first day,” “second day,” etc.) and the months from 1 to 12. No false gods that way.

He is also upset, incidentally, with the Gregorian calendar. Not only does it use the names of those false gods et al., but it “does not accurately start the year at the proper time in accordance with the spring season.”

His case eventually was heard by a federal judge, who methodically explained why Israel's lawsuit was not viable. The main reason was that, except in cases involving allegedly illegal expenditures of funds, he could not pursue “a generalized grievance . . . will provide no particular benefit to Israel in comparison to the public at large.” Because Israel did not have a legal basis to bring such a generalized claim, she dismissed his lawsuit.

And come to think of, everyone is still using the same calendar terms we used back in 2016, too.