NEW YORK – A New York City political anchor is calling out the city’s politicians for pandering to minority groups with recent calls to expand religious holidays in the name of fairness.

Errol Louis, the political anchor for NY1 News, recently penned an editorial for the New York Daily News about recent demands to close the city’s schools for the Asian Lunar New Year and other minority holidays like Diwali, a festival of lights in the Hindu and Jain religions.

The op-ed comes about two weeks after Mayor Bill de Blasio announced New York City schools will close next year for two Muslim holidays, Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, to allow students to worship with their families without missing school, Newsday reports.

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“A holiday of supreme importance to the Muslim community will be recognized in our school calendar, so that children can honor the holiday without missing school, so that families can be together on the holiday, so that our city respects and embraces this growing community,” de Blasio said, according to the news site.

The move means school officials will be forced to adjust the calendar each year to close for the Muslim holidays, which follow the lunar calendar. It was the first religious additions since school officials added Jewish holy days to the calendar in 1960, and it has been followed by calls from lawmakers to enact similar days off for Asian religious days, according to the New York Daily News editorial.

“A group of pols who represent heavily Asian districts recently took to the steps of City Hall to argue that all 1.1 million of New York’s schoolchildren — 85% of whom are not Asian — should be kept home every year on the second new moon following the winter solstice,” Louis wrote.

“Acknowledging some cultures but not others, the mayor is playing a dangerous game by invalidating and further marginalizing ethnic communities,” Queens Assemblyman Ron Kim said, according to Louis.

“Waiting in the wings are members of a coalition that has already petitioned Mayor de Blasio to close the schools on Diwali, the Festival of Lights that commemorates the marriage of Lord Vishnu and the goddess Lakshmi for Hindus and coincides with the elevation of Lord Mahavira, a pivotal figure in the Jain religion, to a state of nirvana.

“At this rate, it’s only a matter of time before leaders of the city’s growing African population start nagging City Hall about letting kids skip school during the feast days dedicated to Shango, Babalu Aye and other Yoruba deities,” he said.

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Louis pointed out that the city’s public schools already struggle to comply with the state-mandated 180 days of student instruction, and stuffing more religious holidays into the school year only further complicates that effort.

Currently, there are only two snow days built into the school year, which leaves little wiggle room.

He also reminded the public of the fact that most NYC students are graduating high school unprepared for college, and argued that giving them more time off would only make matters worse.

Instead of the political “genuflecting” to minority religions, Louis offered another solution.

“The city Education Department should strip the school calendar of every religiously inspired holiday — including the Jewish and Christian oldies like Rosh Hashanah and Good Friday — and revert to a bare-bones schedule that coincides with secular federal holidays like New Year’s Day, Presidents’ Day, Labor Day and Thanksgiving. (Yes, Christmas counts on this list, too,)” he wrote.

Louis also countered de Blasio’s claim that adding Muslim holidays is “just a matter of fairness.”

“Really? One of the new holidays, Eid al-Fitr (the end of Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting), falls in mid-July this year, meaning it will be missed only by summer school students, the vast majority of whom are not Muslim — arguably, a group of kids who most need more classroom time, not less.

“How is that fair? And to whom?” he questioned.

“Closing the schools for Asian Lunar New Year, Diwali and other religious holidays — how would you draw the line? — adds another marker of “respect”: forcing a majority of the city’s kids to give up a day of learning. A better gesture would be to show that our secular government places education above political favor-seeking.”