High School Football and Prayer

I have no problem with student led prayer, although I think it is pointless, it is a personal activity. What I have a problem with is a public school or public official sponsored prayer. While the article shows that some schools have student led prayers at football games, these prayers are conducted over the school's public address system. This action amounts to implicit, if not explicit, endorsement of religion by the school. I see no difference between this action and the action in Georgia.

In the article below, Gulf County Superintendent Tim Wilder said, “We have always supported it. Our board supports it. If we find out we’re doing something illegal, we’ll consult our attorney.” No one has ever complained about the prayers..." Just because no one has complained does not mean it is Ok. In fact the article notes that in 2000 the Supreme Court ruled that a school in Texas violated the establishment clause by allowing students to pray before football games over the public address system.

When is it OK to pray in school?

Prayer in public schools is a contentious subject in Northwest Florida

By Katie Tammen and Will Hobson / Florida Freedom Newspapers

Port St. Joe’s last home football game of 2009 began like any other, with player introductions and a prayer.
The public address announcer introduced each senior individually, then handed the microphone to a local minister.
The din of the crowd dropped to murmurs. Most of the people in the stands bowed their heads. A few players dropped to one knee.
“Father, we do thank you for the blessings of this day,” said Troy White of New Life Christian Center, a non-denominational Port St. Joe church. White thanked God for the athletes, asked Him to guide the seniors as they made career and college choices, to keep the players safe, and to bless everyone at the game.
“This we ask you in Jesus’ name. Amen,” White concluded.
Christian prayer prior to football games is a tradition in the South. But prayers like the one said at Port St. Joe over the school-owned public address system also might violate the “establishment clause” of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Gulf County School District officials believe the pre-game prayers are both positive and legal.
But similar practices elsewhere have landed school districts in divisive lawsuits that can cost districts hundreds of thousands of tax dollars.
“They’re setting themselves up for a legal fight, and that’s just unfortunate,” said Charles Haynes, a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center, a nonpartisan organization with offices in Washington D.C. and Nashville, Tenn. “No one wins with these lawsuits.”

Contentious topic

Prayer in public schools is a contentious subject in Northwest Florida.
A U.S. District Judge placed the Santa Rosa County School District under a court order in January that prevents officials from sanctioning or leading religious activities.
In response, Santa Rosa County students began leading voluntary prayers this fall before high school games.
Meanwhile, 100 or so miles to the east, Florida Freedom reporters observed pre-game prayers this fall at schools in Gulf, Washington and Jackson counties. They all followed a similar pattern.
At Graceville High School in Jackson County, a student led a prayer over the public address system before the Oct. 2 game against Blountstown. The student asked the “Heavenly Father” to keep the players and the crowd safe.
That same night a student also led a prayer over the public address system in Gulf County before Wewahitchka High School played Bozeman, asking for the safety of the players and crowd, but making no mention of a deity.
A week later, the announcer at Wewahitchka’s game against Liberty County offered a prayer to Jesus Christ over the public address system.
Washington County students frequently lead Christian prayers over the public address system at Chipley and Vernon games. Typically, the crowd is asked to stand and bow their heads by the announcer before a student prays.
School officials in all three counties said they intend to continue the practice.
“We support it (the prayer),” said Gulf County Superintendent Tim Wilder. “We have always supported it. Our board supports it. If we find out we’re doing something illegal, we’ll consult our attorney.”
No one has ever complained about the prayers, the officials said.
“If anything, I’ll hear about it if they don’t pray,” said Washington County Superintendent Sandra Cook.

What’s legal?

The U.S. Supreme Court has made a number of rulings about what is and is not legal when it comes to prayer in schools.
Still, questions abound.
“There are lots of people, who if they feel strongly about something, really don’t care what the Supreme Court says,” said Douglas Laycock, a University of Michigan Law School professor who specializes in the First Amendment. “If they want to find a way to keep doing it, they will. That’s been the history of this litigation ever since the Supreme Court started deciding these cases in 1962.”
The legal debate hit Northwest Florida in August 2008 when the American Civil Liberties Union, on behalf of some students, sued Santa Rosa County schools for promoting Christianity. After a five-month legal battle, the district admitted liability and agreed to abide by a court order that prevented school officials from promoting any religion.
This fall, Santa Rosa County high school students began leading football crowds in the Lord’s Prayer – a practice that the students involved say is voluntary, doesn’t involve use of the public address system, and is not sanctioned by school officials.
The trouble arises, according to some legal scholars, when students are allowed to use a school’s public address system to lead the prayers, as they are in Chipley, Graceville, Port St. Joe, Vernon and Wewahitchka. The public address system is school property, and use of it to pray implies school endorsement, said Haynes, who has written extensively about religion in schools.
The legal basis for this argument was established in 2000 when the Supreme Court ruled that a school in Santa Fe, Texas, violated the establishment clause by allowing students to pray before football games over the public address system.
“Religious liberty is about keeping the government out of our religious choices and commitments,” said Laycock, who wrote a brief in the Santa Fe case. “We leave religion to individual families and churches, and you just can’t deliver a prayer for a large crowd in a way that is consistent with the religious liberty of everybody there.”
Under current interpretation of the law, Haynes said the only way prayers over the school public address system can be constitutional is if they are part of a free-speech forum. To be considered a free-speech forum, several considerations need to be met.
“Does the school give the microphone over to any and all students on all occasions or a student, who, wink, wink, was going to give a prayer?” Haynes asked.
Another important factor is the schools’ past actions.
“History counts,” said Haynes. “What is the pattern here in this community?”
If a lawsuit is filed, a district is likely in for a long and expensive legal battle. Santa Rosa Schools spent more than $440,000, and their case didn’t even go to trial.
Neither Haynes nor Laycock definitively said that Northwest Florida schools are in violation of the law by allowing prayers over the public address systems. But both questioned the legality of the practice.
“I don’t think the school is wise to be cute about this, to try to find some way to get around the law,” Haynes said. “It’s possible that they could get away with it, but I think they know what they’re doing.”

Not so crystal clear

Most school administrators said as long as pregame prayers are student-led, and the content is not previewed or approved by school staff, then they are respecting both the establishment clause and the free speech requirements of the First Amendment.
Graceville Principal Chris Franklin said he worries that stopping a student from praying over the public address system would violate that student’s right to free speech.
“We don’t want to do anything wrong, but we have to respect students’ rights,” he said.
Some legal experts support Franklin’s understanding of the law.
“It’s not an automatic violation of the so-called separation of church and state because religious remarks come over the PA system,” said David Cortman, senior legal counsel with Alliance Defense Fund. “The more particular facts should be applied, not an erroneous broad brush, which is why the Santa Fe case doesn’t apply as particularly to these situations as Adler v. Duval County.”
The 2001 ruling Cortman cited was one of two made by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta after the Santa Fe case that allowed prayer over public address systems at school events as long as the prayers were student-led with no school approval.
“There’s a difference between government-sponsored religion and going so far as to limit private religious speech. I think the ACLU continues its seek-and-destroy mission of all religious speech,” Cortman said.

Read the full article and see the accompanying video here.

Of Rainbow's, Tuxedo's and Gays

Image via Wikipedia

The ACLU has been tracking stories of discrimination of gay public school students. It bothers me to no end that stories like this are all to frequent. But, it does not surprise me that both of these stories take place in the south - no offense to my southern atheist friends. Will these people ever learn!

What Were They Thinking?!?
Banning Tuxedos and Rainbows

Earlier this month, the ACLU heard of a story about a young woman—a straight A student, goalie on the soccer team and a trumpet player—who was denied a photo in her school yearbook because she was wearing a tuxedo.
School officials told Ceara Sturgis, an openly gay senior at Wesson Attendance Center in Wesson, MS, that her photo would not appear in the yearbook because in it she is wearing a tuxedo, not the traditional drape worn by other female students. Assistant Superintendent Robert Holloway informed Ceara's mother that there was no policy in the student handbook requiring females to wear drapes.
 
>>Learn more about the case in Mississippi.

This reminds us of another ridiculous case in Florida where school officials tried to limit the self expression of students by banning rainbows—any kind of rainbow—including Reading Rainbow, the Apple logo and Pink Floyd t-shirts.

Thankfully, the case in Florida ended in a victory for First Amendment rights.

Check out the video to see the school board fight the insidious “Reading Rainbow” logo.

The ACLU is fighting for the First Amendment rights of students throughout the country. Trying to remove photos of women in tuxedos and rainbows at schools makes us really wonder: What were they thinking?!?

Update - Special Area Provided for Religious Signs at Football Games

A couple of weeks ago I posted about the Special Area Provided for Religious Signs at Football Games. Apparently, the debate is still going on although no one has yet sued they are certainly playing the First Amendment card on both sides.

John Pless of WTVC-TV NewsChannel 9 posted the following article on the continuing saga in Catoosa County.

Who Is Right About The Law, Cheerleaders, The Bible?

The debate over Bible verses posted at one high school's football games rages on with both sides making passionate arguments while petitions are being tossed around. But lost in all the emotion is the law and what the courts say the First Amendment means.
So who is right, and will anyone spend the huge amount of money and time to challenge the court's interpretation of the law? So far no one has sued.
Ringgold Attorney Matthew Bryan, who has recently spoken on behalf of the cheerleaders actions, said Wednesday "let me clarify that I am not ready to pursue this in the courts and I don't know whether a group of people is or not."
But Bryan does want to clarify his interpretation of the law -- the First Amendment to the Constitution -- that so many people at Tuesday night's Catoosa County School Board meeting shared. They don't like the School District putting an end to a practice on the Lakeview Forth Oglethorpe High School football field.
Before home games players would run through a banner peppered with verses from the Bible and erupt on the field in a show of "Warrior" team spirit. But the School District says it gives the appearance of the public school promoting a religion.
"The issue is going to be, are the signs private student speech or are they state sponsored speech," Bryan said.
Byan said the banners are an expression of private student speech. He said similar legal battles over religion vs. public schools have resulted in the courts favoring expression of religion in some cases. In other cases, Bryan said the courts sided with public schools.
Each case that has been tried and adjudicated revolves around very particular, unique issues and circumstances that are very different from each other -- whether it's an issue of what a student wears, says or expresses and how those thoughts and opinions are expressed.
Here's how the attorney for the Catoosa County School District sees this particular issue with the cheerleaders.
"The engaging of pre-game activities at a football game, that the school is sponsoring the religious activity, that's the heart of the matter," Rezno Higgins said.
Of course lawyers and the courts have different interpretations of what the First Amendment to the Constitution means. While there have been plenty of cases decided that involve religious issues and public schools there has never been a case involving cheerleaders or banners with Biblical verses on the playing field.
What has been so puzzling to parents and students is the School District will allow religious expresion in the stands, outside the stadium and on t-shirts -- all in plain view of anyone attending the game -- but not on the playing field which is also in plain view.
"The activity in the stands, the activity right outside the stadium, the activity off the field and off the sidelines does not give the impression to a casual observer that the school is sponsoring the religious activity," Wiggins explained.
But Bryan said cheerleaders are being denied their right to freely express their private views, according to the way he reads some past court decisions.
"We don't have the school system having anything to do with the message and these banners are not going up because of some policy the school system has in order to promote religion," Bryan said. "Without these two factors it remains private student speech and so has First Amendment protection."
For either side this would be a difficult case to prepare and argue before the courts. Similar lawsuits against school boards involving religious issues take years to settle and cost between $350,000 and $1-million.
Wiggins said complications, costs and time consumed increase in these type of cases because organizations and special interest groups file motions and orders with the court that have to be settled before the main case can be heard and resolved.
"Every dollar that's spent on attorney fees and defense of legal costs in this matter is a dollar that doesn't go for the education of students," Wiggins said.

Related articles at News Channel 9:
http://www.newschannel9.com/news/support-985255-game-cheerleaders.html
http://www.newschannel9.com/news/school-985252-signs-game.html
http://www.newschannel9.com/news/school-985156-support-students.html