Oh yeah. Forgot about Columbus Day.
Oh well, Columbus' actions impacted us all. And I still think that Washington, Lincoln, and Christ are more important than Martin Luther King. They are consequential to the population as a whole, not just a segment of it.
Heck. I'm a Mormon. I could make a really compelling argument that Brigham Young should have a national holiday. After all, he led people who were being persecuted for their religion across a thousand miles of wilderness and colonized, not just Utah, but a large part of the American West. Sure, the fact that he openly practiced polygamy (while Martin Luther King furtively flitted from flower to flower) might bother some people. But that shouldn't matter. He did historically consequential things. He was a very dynamic leader. And, during the course of his lifetime, he said a lot of things that were very inspirational.
But I don't expect anybody outside the Mormon population to be excited about my proposal.
And would everyone who opposed my proposal for Brigham Young Day be a bigot? No. A proposal like that would be divisive. I would be trying to force everyone to honor someone who is historically important to me and mine, but not to the country as a whole.
>They are consequential to the population as a whole, not just a segment of it.<
I respectfully disagree with the statement that MLK was only consequential to a segment of the population. As a native Virginian, from where I sit MLK was most certainly consequential to the nation as a whole, as he embodied the victory over segregation. King was the focal point of the Civil Rights movement.
Segregation might not have been nationwide, but it was a cancer to the entire body of the United States. The evil of segregation had to be excised, for our nation to grow.
I remember when local black people could not freely go to a public swimming pool, or to a restaurant, or even to a given restroom. That our laws allowed such prohibitions is in direct contradiction to the idea that "all men are created equal".
Now, I'm not convinced we needed yet another federal holiday, but I am convinced that MLK is and will remain an important historical figure to every citizen of the United States.