Texas judge rules for cheerleaders in Bible banner suit

[struggle4progress]

Published May 08, 2013
Associated Press

... State District Judge Steven Thomas determined the Kountze High School cheerleaders' banners are constitutionally permissible. In the ruling, Thomas determined that no law "prohibits cheerleaders from using religious-themed banners at school sporting events" ...

"This is a great victory for the cheerleaders and now they're going to be able to have their banners," said Hiram Sasser, a lead attorney for the Liberty Institute, a Plano, Texas-based nonprofit law firm that represented the cheerleaders.

But Thomas Brandt, the school district's attorney, argued that Judge Thomas also granted a school district motion in his ruling that says the district can permit the banners under the establishment clause but is not required to do so. Brandt said the motion also says banners are the speech of the school, not private speech, so the school has a right to have editorial control over banners.

Initially, the school district ruled the banners could not be displayed. But after a public meeting in February, the school board of trustees issued a resolution in which it wrote that the district was not required to prohibit messages on school banners that displayed "fleeting expressions of community sentiment solely because the source or origin of such messages is religious." But the trustees said the district retained the right to restrict the content of school banners ...

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/05/08/texas-judge-rules-for-cheerleaders-in-bible-banner-suit/

Yet another reason not to elect judges ...

[trotsky]

1. Because a lot of people put their religious beliefs ahead of everything else.

As they are taught to.

[struggle4progress]

2. Judge rules in favor of Kountze cheerleaders displaying Bible verses

Wednesday, May 08, 2013

... The Anti-Defamation League .. criticized the ruling.

"High school football games are a quintessential school event and cheerleaders are a key part of that event," said Martin B. Cominsky, ADL Southwest Regional Director. "This decision flies in the face of clear U.S. Supreme Court and other rulings. The religious banners blatantly convey a message that the school supports and promotes one religion over any other. Not only is that inappropriate, the court should have found it unconstitutional" ...

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/state&id=9094448

[struggle4progress]

3. Faith Meets Football and a Dispute Ensues in East Texas

by Morgan Smith
October 14, 2012

... The dispute in Kountze comes down to a single question: whether the cheerleaders were representing the school when they held the banners. Their lawyers, along with the attorney general, say it is clear they were acting as individuals ... For others, the matter is not so easily settled. They point to a 2000 U.S. Supreme Court decision, a case that originated in an East Texas town two hours south of Kountze. Santa Fe ISD v. Doe defined the boundary between student and school-sponsored speech when it outlawed student-led prayer over the loudspeakers at football games. It said the district’s policy amounted to government endorsement of religion, a violation of the First Amendment’s establishment clause ...

http://www.texastribune.org/2012/10/14/battle-over-religion-schools-returns-east-texas/

Santa Fe Independent School Dist. v. Doe
530 U.S. 290 (2000) ...

JUSTICE STEVENS delivered the opinion of the Court. Prior to 1995, the Santa Fe High School student who occupied the school's elective office of student council chaplain delivered a prayer over the public address system before each varsity football game for the entire season ... Respondents are two sets of current or former students and their respective mothers. One family is Mormon and the other is Catholic. The District Court permitted respondents (Does) to litigate anonymously to protect them from intimidation or harassment ... In their complaint the Does alleged that the District had engaged in several proselytizing practices, such as promoting attendance at a Baptist revival meeting, encouraging membership in religious clubs, chastising children who held minority religious beliefs, and distributing Gideon Bibles on school premises ... The first Clause in the First Amendment to the Federal Constitution provides that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The Fourteenth Amendment imposes those substantive limitations on the legislative power of the States and their political subdivisions ... These invocations are authorized by a government policy and take place on government property at government sponsored school-related events. Of course, not every message delivered under such circumstances is the government's own ... Moreover, the District has failed to divorce itself from the religious content in the invocations ... Thus, the expressed purposes of the policy encourage the selection of a religious message, and that is precisely how the students understand the policy ... Once the student speaker is selected and the message composed, the invocation is then delivered to a large audience assembled as part of a regularly scheduled, school-sponsored function conducted on school property ... In this context the members of the listening audience must perceive the pregame message as a public expression of the views of the majority of the student body delivered with the approval of the school administration ... One of the purposes served by the Establishment Clause is to remove debate over this kind of issue from governmental supervision or control. We explained in Lee that the "preservation and transmission of religious beliefs and worship is a responsibility and a choice committed to the private sphere" ... Even if we regard every high school student's decision to attend a home football game as purely voluntary, we are nevertheless persuaded that the delivery of a pregame prayer has the improper effect of coercing those present to participate in an act of religious worship ...

http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/530/290/case.html

[struggle4progress]

4. Judge Rules in Favor of Cheerleaders’ Religious Banners

Posted on May 8, 2013
by ABC Digital

... The high school cheerleaders had sued the Kountze Independent School District after they were told they could no longer display the banners with religious messages over arguments that it violated the First Amendment ...

http://www.eastidahonews.com/2013/05/judge-rules-in-favor-of-cheerleaders-religious-banners/

[struggle4progress]

5. Judge rules for cheerleaders in Bible banner suit

Posted: May 08, 2013 6:56 PM EDT
Updated: May 08, 2013 9:37 PM EDT
By Alex Villarreal

... "It's not a victory for religious liberty when you make people have to listen to a particular religious view," said Jim Harrington, with the Texas Civil Rights Project. "I expect that it will be reversed on appeal or it'll end up in federal court" ...

http://www.myfoxaustin.com/story/22199693/judge-rules-for-cheerleaders-in-bible-banner-suit

[cleanhippie]

6. Perhaps I've missed it, but the obvious seems to be missing from all of this.

Who encouraged these ladies to do this? I find it difficult to accept that these cheerleaders ALL chose to wear these banners on their own and that every single one of them is a willing participant. Even in Texas.

There are adults, religious zealots, somewhere in the middle of this, sitting around patting themselves on the back.

[hrmjustin]

7. I agree that is very likely.

[struggle4progress]

10. Could be. But they're high school kids in a conservative small-town in Texas:

many people there are likely to hold fairly conventional and traditional views, and neither home nor school nor other social encounters are likely to encourage the kids to step outside of the mainstream

When I was on the track team in my Texas high school, the team used to pray before practice and before meets -- everybody but me, that is: I thought it was silly. No adults were standing there telling them to do that: they just thought they should

So the religion banners could have been the kids' idea

[cleanhippie]

11. Perhaps, but I remain skeptical.

[struggle4progress]

8. pdf of judge's 2 page summary judgment (via patheos)

http://wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/files/2013/05/Kountze-Ruling.pdf

[struggle4progress]

9. Are Kountze taxpayers willing to fork out money for football fight banners?

Thursday, May 9, 2013 by: gator

“If God is for us, who can be against us” ...

And what’s the opposing teams to think? That God is against them? ...

The Kountze Independent School District is in a losing position. It could get sued no matter what decision they made ...

... are the taxpayers of Kountze willing to start forking out money over school football fight banners?

http://blog.beaumontenterprise.com/bayou/2013/05/09/are-kountze-taxpayers-willing-to-fork-out-money-for-football-fight-banners/