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FIRST ON FOX: Arkansas Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is firing back at a legal group who took issue with her recent move to close state offices on Friday, December 26 to celebrate Christmas and give employees more time with their families.
After issuing a proclamation closing state offices for Christmas, Sanders received a letter from the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), a group focused on the separation of church and state, calling for her to reverse the move and claiming it was unconstitutional.
In a response letter, obtained by Fox News Digital, Sanders told FFRF she "will do no such thing."
"You say that my communications as Governor must be neutral on matters of religion," Sanders wrote. "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,' as your letter states. It's not gifts, trees, and stockings that make this holiday special. Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, and if we are to honor Him properly, we should tell His miraculous, world-changing story properly, too."
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Sanders went on to call it ironic that she received the letter "claiming I was alienating my non-Christian constituents as I was leaving a Menorah lighting celebration with people from all across Arkansas."
Sanders wrote, "I doubt they would say that my administration alienates non-Christians. In fact, many would say the opposite: that only by voicing our own faith and celebrating other faiths can we make our state's diverse religious communities feel seen and heard."
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Sanders ended the letter by telling FFRF that they "missed the point" of her Christmas proclamation, explaining that it was "not to browbeat readers with Christian doctrine" but "rather to point to the humility of Christ's birth and to the amazing fact that the King of Kings was born not in a palace or temple, but in a humble manger attended only by poor shepherds."
"Though you may enter this season with bitterness, know that Christ is with you, that He loves you, and that He died for your sins just the same as He did for mine and everyone else's," the letter concluded.
The letter from FFRF claimed that Sanders used her "official capacity" to "advance a specific religious viewpoint, in violation of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause."
Fox News Digital reached out to FFRF for comment.
