'Eid al Fitur?

Today is one of the high holy days of Islam, 'Eid al Fitur. After thirty days of fasting from food and drink, Muslims around the world celebrate with three days of feasting. But you wouldn't know it if you were in the U.S. government.

I have no problem with Congress taking the day off for Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. Well, that's not true. I have a great deal of difficulty with Congress stopping what it's doing in the middle of an economic crisis, just to celebrate a holiday. I don't care if it's Christmas or Easter- if it's an emergency, you keep on working.

But let's bypass all that. Let's say that Congress is doing its job when it doesn't do what we sent it to do, but takes extra vacations. Why, pray tell, was there no mention of the rather major holiday that a minority of Congress celebrates? Today was 'Eid al Fitur, the second most important holiday in the Islamic calendar, the equivalent of Easter if you're Western, or Christmas if you're of the Orthodox Church. Sure, only two congressmen are Muslim, as opposed to over thirty who are Jewish. But since we're obviously not looking at percentage of members in the holidays that Congress chooses to honor, why in the world did they ignore a major holiday celebrated by over a billion people around the world? Perhaps because they only pay attention to the percentages of their constituents. Understood. The most recent demographics for the U.S. put the number of Muslims as the second largest religion in the U.S., ahead of the Mormons and the Jews. Some disagree with these figures, and say that the number of Muslims is only the same as the number of Jews. Which leads me back to the question.

What prevented Congress from stating that they were taking a holiday to honor not only Rosh Hashana, but also 'Eid al Fitur, which happened this time to fall on the same two days? What message were they hoping to send by this glaring omission?