Ban on Biblical Football Banners Upheld
The ban on Bible verse banners at a Georgia high school's football games was upheld by the Catoosa County Board of Education Tuesday night.
Board Chairman Don Dycus said the resolution they adopted earlier this month that the signs violated the First Amendment still stands.
For years, cheerleaders at Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High School painted Bible verses on large banners for the school football team to run through on the gridiron.
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Some of the verses included, "Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed" and "Be men of courage; be strong."
The signs had been well received by the football team and the community, according to Susan Bradley, one of the cheerleaders' coaches. But last month the mother of a student told the Catoosa County school superintendent that the signs were a violation of the law.
Superintendent Denia Reese was not opposed to the cheerleaders expressing their Christian values, but determined that the banners violated the First Amendment. The signs were banned from the football field shortly after the complaint and only allowed to be displayed in a designated area outside the stadium.
Hundreds from the city rallied last month in support of the biblical signs and some showed up at Tuesday's meeting to defend the banners before the school board.
But their appeals to reverse the ban were rejected.
"This is, at heart, a legal issue," Dycus said, according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
Board attorney Renzo Wiggins said school officials "have not caved in to demands of the minority but instead upheld the principal that protects all religious faiths from entanglement with the government," the local newspaper reported.
Supporters of the biblical banners are considering whether to pursue the matter. Several Christian legal firms have offered to provide free representation to the cheerleaders and their families.
If painting Bible verses on the banners was the cheerleaders' idea and no faculty were involved, they might have a strong free-speech case, Rena Lindevaldsen, an associate law professor at Liberty University, told the Chicago Tribune.
