BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

Public Schools Still Haven't Learned Football, Religion Don't Mix, Legally Speaking

This article is more than 9 years old.

If it's late August, that must mean high school football is starting, and if high school football is starting, that must mean there are new arguments over prayer and public-school teams.

The U.S. Supreme Court was very clear in its 2000 ruling in Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe -- at public schools, there is to be no school-sanctioned religious activity at games. If a student or group of students want to pray independent of the coach? Fine. If a student or group of students want to pray over the public address system? No. (That was specifically the issue in Santa Fe.) If an adult leads the prayer/religious activity or officially approves it? Absolutely not. However, few let go of what they believe is their God-given (I'm not sure there's a pun intended here, given how people feel) right to praise Jesus (it's always Jesus) in an organized fashion at organized public school sports. From the Munster (Ind.) Times:

[Years ago] Hall of Fame coach Don Howell [of Hobart High] said the following on the subject of pregame prayer in the face of those opposed to the practice.

"If the ACLU wants to put me in jail for praying, I'd go," Howell said "I'm looking forward to it. I'd rather be in jail than live in a country that won't let you pray."

The feeling hasn't changed in the past 15 years there.

Howell's best friend, [Hobart assistant coach Tom] Kerr, has carried on for the coach, who has since passed away. It is written on the pregame script — prayer. On the field, in front of all eyes, the Brickies take a knee and Kerr leads them in a prayer.

I'm no lawyer, but I know the American Civil Liberties Union can't put you in jail for praying, or for anything, really, seeing as it has no police or prosecutorial authority. But if these coaches and communities were up on the rule of law, they wouldn't be sanctioning football prayers.

However, they do, and that's why in Florida and Georgia (though not at Hobart, Ind., High -- yet), there are kerfuffles over religion and football, and not because in those states football could be called a religion in its own right.

In Florida, the schools in Orange County, which include Orlando, ordered schools to drop the position of team chaplain after a complaint was filed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which has gotten involved in numerous battles over whether church has made its way too far onto the public field. It's also filed a similar complaint with the schools in Seminole County, Fla. In Georgia, it's a different organization, the American Humanists Association, that is accusing one high school in the Hall County school system of illegally conducting coach-led prayers, and putting Bible verses on team materials, and is also pressing the schools to do more than it has so far to stop the practices.

The pattern, being played out in Florida and Georgia, is that the locals decry the outsiders messing with their way of life, and by the way, I never heard anyone complain. Except that with both the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the American Humanist Association, neither acts until it gets a complaint from someone locally. Clearly, somebody has an issue with the practices. The reason these organizations step in is to willingly take the heat away from the person who has to live among the local outrage.

In many cases, the local districts, not wanting to spend what limited money they have defending lawsuits, do accede to the request of the big, bad, outside group of atheists, and order the offending practice dropped. As a Christian, I don't see why that's a problem. Religion and prayer are very personal. If players or coaches want to pray by themselves before a game, have at it. If players willingly want to meet in a prayer circle after the game, sure, why not. But if you're a public school, you can't do anything that smacks of your making religion a required part of the game. At least, unless the Supreme Court changes it mind.