The NYTimes reports on the latest developments in the controversy surrounding religious expression at high school football games in Ft. Oglethorpe, GA. There, cheerleaders were recently banned from a tradition of creating signs with biblical messages for the team to run through. School officials correctly determined the practice unconstitutionally offers state-sponsored religious speech. Now, in a protest of that decision, parents and fans have ironically turned to a most constitutional mode of expression by flooding the stands with signs of their own featuring scriptural references.
On game nights, the stadium of the school, Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High, just south of Chattanooga, is dotted with signs reading, “You Can’t Silence Us” and “Living Faith Outloud,” along with biblical verses. Even Caleb Wickersham, a 17-year-old atheist from nearby southern Tennessee, acknowledges that fans are exercising a legal right to free speech. “From an atheist’s standpoint, it’s frustrating because I don’t want more religion in my face,” Caleb said. “But it’s their constitutional right.”
I may question the tact, consideration and piety involved in such a display, confronting fellow citizens with religious expression at a community event, but there's no question of its legality. And it's the right answer to a quote in the report from a cheerleader expressing frustration with the new policy. My emphasis:
Kaitlynn Corley, an 18-year-old cheerleader, said the ban had put a damper on her senior year…
“I’m a Christian, and I think it’s really neat to be part of a program that wasn’t afraid to express its beliefs,” Kaitlynn said. “We are representatives of the school, but we’re also individuals, and we have the right to believe whatever religion we want.”
Perhaps unwittingly, Kaitlynn has used precisely the right description of what was happening before. Individuals weren't merely expressing their beliefs, a program was expressing its beliefs. The problem, of course, it that *it* is a publicly-supported government entity! *It* is required to represent all the people of the community, not just Ms. Corley but also Mr. Wichersham mentioned in the earlier quotation. In the stands, on the other hand, individuals are most free to express personal beliefs. It's certainly not what I go to a football game to see or do, but sounds within the rights of those who do.
