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On Sunday, Google featured a "Google Doodle" of Cesar Chavez on their homepage, in honor of what would have been the leader of the United Farm Workers' 86th birthday. Because his birthday happened to coincide with Easter, the gesture set off a torrent of criticism on social media.

"Cool for Google to not celebrate Easter but really?!!?" tweeted Glenn Beck. "HAPPY Caesar (sic) Chavez day everybody!" Fox News' Dana Perino tweeted, "I thought the Chavez-Google thing was a hoax or an early April Fool's Day prank ... are they just going to leave that up there all day?"

Actually, yes -- and good for Google. Not only is it the company's prerogative to design its own homepage, it is doubtful that they meant any slight towards Christians. Google was educating the public and honoring a Latino civil rights hero. Sadly, perhaps what is offensive to so many conservative commentators is the reminder of the rising influence of Hispanics in American society.

Rod Dreher at the American Conservative wrote that, "It's a small thing, of course, but this kind of thing, accumulated, signals an intentional de-Christianization of our culture and the creation of an intentional hostility of Christianity that will eventually cease to be latent or minor." His worries are wildly overblown. To suggest that a huge corporation such as Google intended an insult to the world's estimated 2.18 billion Christians is absurd. Besides, Easter falls on a different date each year, whereas President Obama has officially designated March 31 as Cesar Chavez Day. The next time these two dates will overlap will be in 2024.

Google is not known for marking religious holidays with Google Doodles anyway. This may be out of respect, as the Doodles are often quirky, or because the company does not want to be seen as favoring one religion over the other. Consider that Google's first and only Doodle with an Easter theme was in 2000. Or that in December, the Doodles typically feature toys, presents and other secular holiday motifs, without any specific references to Christmas. This is not evidence of an anti-Christian bias; it is savvy business practice for a global company.