Do American students have the right to enlist the aid of God in support of their high school football team? That’s the big question that a Texas court will soon have to decide on, says The New York Times. Will it allow the cheerleaders of Kountze High to go on decorating their home field with banners inscribed with biblical verses? Will it allow the school’s football team to continue the practice of bursting onto the field through a banner asking: “If God is for us, who can be against us?”? What the court has to decide is whether such banners are an exercise in free speech or whether they breach the line between church and state by unconstitutionally endorsing a particular religion. (New York Times editorial)
Kountze High is a state-funded school, and the espousal of one single religion is undoubtedly unconstitutional. Seems a no- brainier.
What is troublesome is the fact that the school head and the teachers should allow such behavior. They should be there to encourage the students to think for themselves and to imbibe the wisdom of the ages, free of superstition. If the kids want to indulge in that they should do it out of school, in church.
If there is a god he has better things to do than to concern himself with a silly children’s games. And concern himself with better things he seriously needs to. (excuse the tortured English).
Epicureans would never dream of appealing to anyone else, up there or down here, for help with a football game. Instead, they would practice, practice, practice, get better, stronger, faster and fitter than any likely competitive team.