Georgia Community Speaks Out for Religious Freedom
Reprinted by permission of the Christian Post
By Nathan Black
Christian Post Reporter
Wed, Sep. 30 2009 11:20 AM EDT
Hundreds of people joined a rally Tuesday night to support Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High School cheerleaders and their right to paint Bible verses on banners.
The signs, which the Georgia school football team has run through for years, were banned last week over a complaint that the banners promoted religion.
LFO senior cheerleader Taylor Guinn said they’re being silenced for what they believe in.
“It was heartbreaking to know that our school system is just conforming to the nonbelievers and letting them have their way when there’s so many more people wanting the signs,” Guinn said, according to Chattanooga Times Free Press. “Our freedom of speech and freedom of religion is being taken away.”
Catoosa County Schools Superintendent Denia Reese appreciates the cheerleaders expressing their Christian values. But after receiving the complaint, she determined that the biblical banners violated the First Amendment.
“It broke my heart to have to tell those girls that they could not display that message on the football field,” Reese told WDEF News. “The location inside the football field creates the impression that the school system is endorsing that particular religious message.”
She has allowed the signs to be displayed in a designated area outside the football stadium.
Writing Bible verses on run-through banners has been a tradition at the high school for years.
According to Susan Bradley, one of the cheerleaders’ coaches, the signs have been well received by the football team and the community.
“It’s just kind of a positive message that seems to have been appreciated by the community and by the school,” the coach told Chattanooga Times Free Press. “It seems like it was something that everybody was in unison about, so there was no problem.”
The community showed its support when more than 500 showed up at Tuesday’s rally. Thousands are also backing the cheerleaders on Facebook.
“What happened at LFO is terrible!” said Brad Scott, a local youth pastor and president of the LFO Class of 2004, who claims the same incident happened during his high school years.
“We stood up for our rights and this issue was defeated through grassroots efforts. Time to do it again!” the youth pastor said on the Facebook page he created.
LFO Principal Jerry Ransom supports the banners but said the school has to “adhere to what the Supreme Court and federal courts have ruled on.”
For Jeremy Jones, another local youth pastor, the First Amendment is a two-way street.
“Our Constitution does guarantee that our federal government will not establish a religion. It will also make sure that we are allowed to exercise it without interference from the government,” Jones told the Times Free Press.
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The one force that does the most good in the world — biblical Christianity — is hated & censored to an extent that even the most evil things rarely are. And its own text openly predicted this would be the case! Why is it so hated? Because man's pride rebels at the knowledge that he is not his own boss.
Those who hate Christianity fail to see the extent to which their own actions demonstrate it to be true.
The students aren't being denied their freedom of religion. They are free to believe in whatever religion they desire. What public schools( government entities) can't do is promote a particular religion and if putting Bible verses on football banners isn't promotion than I don't know what is. The Christian mantra is to go out and spread the word and try and convert people, so these people, being good Christians, are being true to their beliefs and putting Bible verses on banners to promote their religion which their faith ask them to do.
No one is being fooled that they are merely ' expressing their religion'. It is a clear promotion or proselytizing. Christians are suppose to proselytize and this is just another way to do it. We don't need religious proselytizing of any type in public schools. Plenty of other places to do it.
Whether the students' “freedom of religion” is being denied is not really the big point. What I'd like an honest answer to is, how many *other* things (including things relating to non-Christian religions) would have been banned from the banners (no pun intended)? If real life cases are any indication, hardly any.
Secularists conveniently throw around phrases like “people are free to believe in whatever religion they want,” but many Christians understand what they really mean: “You can have whatever religious belief you want, but as far as we're concerned they're all just made up; therefore only our 'secular' beliefs should have any public influence.” If you don't see real-life actions making that statement, you just don't want to.
In answer to your first concern of how many 'other things' would have been banned from the banners (like non-Christian religions or secular slogans), we don't know because very few other religions and secularists seem to feel the need to put their beliefs on football banners. But if they did, then that would be objectionable as well as Bible verses.
It is a football game and any one group can not espouse their belief system on a school funded and supported endeavor. Think of how ridiculous it would be if Jews, Christians, Muslims, Atheists,Daoists, Hindus demanded the same. How about just enjoying the game.Recite verses or quotes from 'The Origin of the Species' in the stands if you want.
I do believe that religion is man made, but absolutely do not believe only secularist ideas should have public influence. Each persons belief should have influence—no hint of government preferences, thats all.
What does the Constitution say? It doesn't merely guarantee the freedom to believe what we want, it guarantees our right to express our religious faith. It restrains the federal government from “prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” and the Constitutionally-contemptuous federal government is clearly what these local school officials fear.
You also fail to understand what secularists always fail (or don't want to) understand: school children aren't representatives of the federal government. If they want to exercise their religious freedom, they are Constitutionally entitled to do so. In fact, they are Constitutionally entitled to perform the “proselytizing” you find so distasteful. It's your right to find it distasteful, but it is their right to express their faith. They don't leave their freedoms behind when they walk onto school grounds, and school grounds are not protected by some invisible forcefield from the power of the Constitution.
What a reprehensible travesty that our first and most fundamental freedom is not only being quashed in America…but the very constitutional amendment designed to protect it is being perverted to act as the hammer.
My only question is what do you think the founders meant when they said ' the free exercise thereof ' ? Do you think there are any limits at all to 'the free exercise thereof' ?The Constitution doesn't mention any limitations, so you must feel there are absolutely no limitations and that a person or group of people can go anywhere they want at any time and 'express' their religion. The Constitution doesn't prohibit this behavior, correct ?
Read this carefully. It is a MAJOR shift in defining the way the word separation is used.
Our public offices and buildings belong to the people. We have the freedom to express ourselves religiously anywhere we choose, guaranteed by the constitution.
The state can make NO comments about what we do or where we do it. The State must separate itself from religious questions, it must not involve itself, and it cannot make any decisions about it. Separation of church and state means HANDS OFF.
If those kids (who are not the state) want to display their banners at a football game on HS property the school officials (who are the state) are by constitutional orders to keep their mouths shut and look the other way. That is separation. To involve themselves and make official statements banning religion is mixing themselves (the state) into the peoples right to free religious expression.
Using the same faulty logic the state now imposes they should also ban priests, rabbis and all clerics, nuns, monks etc from wearing anything religious, including their religious symbols from entering courthouses, schools or any other public buildings. By that same faulty logic a student with a prayer tattoo on his hand should not be allowed to attend school.
Either public buildings belong to the people or they do not. If they do not then we should not be taxed to build them. If we the people decide to express our religion on property owned by us, the state must separate itself from making any comments, remain neutral, and stop meddling in our freedom to express our religious beliefs.
Separation of church and state means something entirely different from what the state says it does. The “state” is any power that be which is part of governing the public, whether it be local, city, state or federal. Those people with an official elected or appointed voice to tell people what to do – that is the state.
The state works for the people in general and carries out their will, or at least they are supposed to in theory.
Therefore, separation of church and state means they have NOTHING to say about prayer in school or Christmas ornaments or decorations in public buildings if the public sees fit to pray or remind themselves of their faith and carry express it. Separation means making no decisions whatsoever as far as our expression of religion.
What they are doing now is meddling in religion and making official statements – they are injecting their decisions into, and getting involved in the religion when they should be stepping back and letting people be free to worship.
Look at it as it were a question of race. They can't discriminate against whites, blacks, asians or anyone else. That means they can't tell people to bleach their skin, or darken their skin or have surgery to make their features occidental and not oriental. They have nothing to say one way or the other and must virtually ignore what race a person belongs to, even though everyone wears their race as plainly as day.
Thus, separation of church and state means say nothing – make no official statements whatever one way or the other about religion that people carry out on public grounds, and that includes schools, courthouses, libraries or anywhere else. Otherwise they should also refuse to permit Rabbis, Priests, Monks or others who quite plainly and quite obviously are displaying religious preferences in public from entering state buildings.
It is therefore, my argument and belief that meddling in the students time worn practice of creating religious banners at their football games is absolutely unconstitutional. And any mother or community member who has a problem with that should be told by the school that they are very sorry, but they must remain separate from any discussion of religion and can not get involved. Period.
Read this carefully. It is a MAJOR shift in defining the way the word separation is used.
Our public offices and buildings belong to the people. We have the freedom to express ourselves religiously anywhere we choose, guaranteed by the constitution.
The state can make NO comments about what we do or where we do it. The State must separate itself from religious questions, it must not involve itself, and it cannot make any decisions about it. Separation of church and state means HANDS OFF.
If those kids (who are not the state) want to display their banners at a football game on HS property the school officials (who are the state) are by constitutional orders to keep their mouths shut and look the other way. That is separation. To involve themselves and make official statements banning religion is mixing themselves (the state) into the peoples right to free religious expression.
Using the same faulty logic the state now imposes they should also ban priests, rabbis and all clerics, nuns, monks etc from wearing anything religious, including their religious symbols from entering courthouses, schools or any other public buildings. By that same faulty logic a student with a prayer tattoo on his hand should not be allowed to attend school.
Either public buildings belong to the people or they do not. If they do not then we should not be taxed to build them. If we the people decide to express our religion on property owned by us, the state must separate itself from making any comments, remain neutral, and stop meddling in our freedom to express our religious beliefs.
Separation of church and state means something entirely different from what the state says it does. The “state” is any power that be which is part of governing the public, whether it be local, city, state or federal. Those people with an official elected or appointed voice to tell people what to do – that is the state.
The state works for the people in general and carries out their will, or at least they are supposed to in theory.
Therefore, separation of church and state means they have NOTHING to say about prayer in school or Christmas ornaments or decorations in public buildings if the public sees fit to pray or remind themselves of their faith and carry express it. Separation means making no decisions whatsoever as far as our expression of religion.
What they are doing now is meddling in religion and making official statements – they are injecting their decisions into, and getting involved in the religion when they should be stepping back and letting people be free to worship.
Look at it as it were a question of race. They can't discriminate against whites, blacks, asians or anyone else. That means they can't tell people to bleach their skin, or darken their skin or have surgery to make their features occidental and not oriental. They have nothing to say one way or the other and must virtually ignore what race a person belongs to, even though everyone wears their race as plainly as day.
Thus, separation of church and state means say nothing – make no official statements whatever one way or the other about religion that people carry out on public grounds, and that includes schools, courthouses, libraries or anywhere else. Otherwise they should also refuse to permit Rabbis, Priests, Monks or others who quite plainly and quite obviously are displaying religious preferences in public from entering state buildings.
It is therefore, my argument and belief that meddling in the students time worn practice of creating religious banners at their football games is absolutely unconstitutional. And any mother or community member who has a problem with that should be told by the school that they are very sorry, but they must remain separate from any discussion of religion and can not get involved. Period.