De facto, not de jure!

Here's what I've found out about the legal status of the Gregorian calendar:

 

On the morning of day I went to court, I sent a quick e-mail to the Dep't of Justice about this issue. Here's what I wrote:

 

    * Does the United States have an official national calendar?
    * And am I legally forced to acknowledge and use the Gregorian Calendar?
    * I read an article yesterday that stated: "The legal code of the United States does not specify an official national calendar." Can you verify this?

 

Surprisingly, I received a reply within the hour (with my emphasis):

 

    Your message was forwarded to us for response from the U.S. Department of Justice (USDOJ). As the Federal Citizen Information Center, our mission is to provide federal information and referrals to the public.

    With regard to your inquiry about a national calendar and the Gregorian Calendar; please visit the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) website at: http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/SEhelp/calendars.html. We hope you find this information helpful.

 

Amazing!! I write the DOJ about the legal status of the Gregorian calendar, and they send me to NASA! But it gets better. I then sent the same questions to the "FirstGov.gov Citizen Response Team", and here is their reply (with my ephasis):

 

    The Gregorian Calendar has become the internationally accepted civil calendar.  For additional information about other principle calendars, please visit: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/calendars.html. We hope you find this information helpful.

Is this not unbelievable?! I then sent the following to both of the above and to NASA and the Naval Observatory:

 

    After not having my questions answered (but being impressed with the speed of reply) and being diverted to NASA and the Navy for legal answers regarding questions that only the Department of Justice can answer, I must rephrase my questions and ask you all together.

 

    First of all, I do not care about the intricacies of the Gregorian calendar, how it compares to other calendars, or the phases of the sun and moon -- I've been studying calendars for 10+ years and know most of this.

 

    And I also realize that the Gregorian calendar is the de facto calendar in use in the United States. (And I do not care about what other countries do.) But what I need to know -- FOR LEGAL REASONS -- is:

 

    * if the Gregorian calendar is also the calendar de jure,

    * and if I am legally obligated as a citizen to acknowledge and use it in my interaction with governmental (federal, state, or local), or any other, entities.

 

Here is the reply by the Office of the Federal Register (with my ephasis):

 

    The United States may not officially have a national calendar, but the Gregorian calendar was adopted in Great Britain and the American colonies in 1752. You may not be obligated to acknowledge and use any calendar, but be aware that the United States Government sets calendar day holidays, payment and due dates, and other occasions by a calendar.

Here is the reply by the Astronomical Applications Dep't of the Naval Observatory (with my emphasis):

 

    We are scientists and not attorneys, and have no official tasking as the calendar experts for the government.  Therefore, we cannot give you legal advice, but can provide the following general information:

    Our search of the U.S. Code does not reveal that the word "Gregorian" appears anywhere in it; hence there cannot be a reference to the "Gregorian calendar".  Nor does it appear in Title 5 (government administrative procedures) of the Code of Federal Regulations. 

   

    The Gregorian calendar was adopted by an act of Parliament in 1751 for England and her colonies, starting in 1752.   That being the case, it was probably regarded as unnecessary for the U.S. to legally adopt an official calendar, just as it was regarded as unnecessary to adopt an official language. It is possible that the Gregorian calendar has been officially adopted by some states or local jurisdictions.

    However, whatever its particular history or legal status, it is the de facto official calendar that all U.S. government agencies use.  It is also the de facto international calendar for civil purposes (e.g., for treaties and other inter-governmental agreements) and for scientific and technical uses (e.g., the international system of timekeeping, transportation scheduling, etc.).  Some nations and cultures do use religious calendars for religious purposes, but still use the Gregorian calendar for official purposes.

    You are certainly free to use whatever calendar you wish in your private life, but in your interactions with businesses and the government, they will use, and assume that you are using, the Gregorian calendar.  We assume that in the U.S., the use of the Gregorian calendar -- where it has not been officially adopted by some law or regulation -- is mostly governed by what is known as "common law".

 

Well their 2nd paragraph pretty much hits-the-nail-on-the-head. They admit that the Gregorian calendar is the de facto calendar of the US, but not the calendar by law (de jure)!

 

I also find it very interesting that they compare the calendar situation with the language situation when the Senate was voting (maybe at that very moment) whether to make English the official (legal/de jure) language of the US. So the government does see a pressing need to make English the official/legal language of the country. And this is okay, because it's not a religious issue.

 

But if they saw the same need to make the calendar official/legal, they would not be able to do it. Why? Because they would be passing a law to enforce a papal decree, and that would violate the 1st Amendment! Not to mention the Vatican itself would rally to defend the mark of its universal authority in determining time ("thinking to change time and seasons"). So the US  government is between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place on this issue -- it just don't realize it yet.

 

(But I'll do my best -- our Father willing -- to make sure they realize the consequences of Israel continuing to follow the decrees of the Whore! And remember ... the first instruction for us in Genesis 1:14 [even before the Sabbath!], and the one to Moses just before Israel left Egypt in Exo 12:2 [even before Passover!], has to do with how to keep track of time -- what calendar to observe/use!)

 

Back to the reply from the Naval Observatory: Since I actually received an intelligent answer from them (they're scientists, rather than bureaucrats, afterall!), I replied to them with some more inquiry:

 

    My beef is not directly with the government per se, but only with the Roman Catholic Church, the Holy See, and the Vatican and all of its teachings and papal bulls -- like Inter Gravissimas that established the Gregorian calendar, for example.

 

    My opinion is that if I use the Gregorian calendar, then I'm voluntarily subjecting myself to the authority and jurisdiction of the Catholic Church (because she is the one that created it and decreed it to be used). But if I am obliged to use it by the government, then I'm being forced to follow a papal decree -- a religious teaching by a foreign religion/government.

 

    What is your personal opinion(s) on this view?

 

Here is their reply (with my emphasis):

 

    That was exactly the reason why the Gregorian calendar was not immediately adopted by countries that had gone Protestant after the Reformation. [My comment: So even the Protestants were against the Gregorian calendar at first. And if the Protestants were against it, how much more should we in the COG be against it?!]

 

    However, the Catholic Church does support some top-notch academic studies and science (there is a Vatican Observatory, for instance, and many good Catholic Universities).  The committee that was formed by Pope Gregory to correct the calendar in the late 1500s did a very competent job, and their calendar solution, which keeps dates well aligned with the revolution of the Earth around the Sun for many centuries, is a very good scheme. 

 

    That is why it has been widely adopted internationally -- basically, they got the right answer, technically, regardless of its history.  So you can regard it simply as a widely used and valid calendar algorithm, and that is why it was adopted in non-Catholic countries.  The calendar is no longer really under the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, since at this point it would take some sort of international agreement (for example, organized by the U.N.) to change the calendar system, and such ideas have gone nowhere.

 

Even though they state that the calendar is no longer under the authority of the Catholic Church, I disagree with them. Try to enforce a new calendar on the world and see how the Whore reacts! It's happened before in history: after the French Revolution, and at various times since then. (You can do an internet search on this subject.) But each attempt has failed, because of the resistance of the Catholic Church and her "coalition of the willing".

 

So there ya have it -- do with it what you will:

 

The Gregorian calendar is the de facto calendar, but not the calendar de jure.

 

And in law, nothing can be assumed or taken for granted just because it's considered de facto! Take murder, for example. Even though murder is considered wrong in-and-of-itself (de facto), it still has to be defined and made illegal by law (de jure).

 

So there is nothing in the law stating that we have to use the Gregorian calendar in our interactions with the government -- or any other person. And since there's no law (just like with English), it's the government's obligation to provide a translation of the Gregorian date to whichever calendar you have chosen to use.

 

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