Google Ignores Christ — Honors Cesar Chavez — on Easter

Anger arose Easter morning when Google chose to honor Latino labor leader Cesar Chavez on its search engine rather than the Christian holiday.

Google has long marked holidays and the birthdays of notable figures by incorporating them into the normally simple logo. But on Sunday two of those fell on the same day: the 86th anniversary of Chavez’s birth and Easter, the day Christians celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and children awaken to see what treats the Easter Bunny has brought them.

Social media was abuzz with reaction:

“Cool for Google to not celebrate Easter but really?!!? Go to http://google.com . HAPPY Caesar Chavez day everybody! #HELIVES!” conservative pundit Glenn Beck tweeted.

As ABC reports, Google hasn’t marked Easter with its Google Doodle, as the special artworks are called, since 2000, but that was little comfort to many – especially since rival search engine Bing covered its home page with colorful Easter eggs.

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Twitchy, conservative blogger Michelle Malkin’s Twitter curation site, gathered several of the tweets.

“I've got nothing against Cesar Chavez, but even Chavez was a Catholic. I doubt he'd want Google to recognize him on Resurrection Day,” tweeted Keith R. Kingsolver @jksolver

“Today's Google Doodle honors César Chávez, who is shown wearing white resplendent clothes as befits one risen from the dead. Er, wait,” said Esteban Vázquez @voxstefani

But the ecumenical website First Things said that while Google’s decision seemed hard to justify, it was actually fitting, considering Chavez’s own deep Catholic faith.

“As a Christian, Chavez believed that the first revolution had to be a revolution of the soul, which meant that personal sacrifices were demanded — not just of the oppressor, but of the oppressed,” First Things noted.