Texas Activism: Friday night lights and Sunday morning sermons

Ever since I was young, I was the one to speak out on things that didn't seem right.

When I was quite young, that personality trait typically showed itself in my writings at school. While my mother volunteered at the local schools, we were not that involved with the workings in town. Much of that was because we lived in an unincorporated area of the city and therefore didn't have much say in the workings of the town.

At the age of 12, my mother and I started attending school board meetings (Santa Fe ISD, Santa Fe, Texas). It didn't take long for them to learn that not only did we have a lot to say, we weren't going away.

At first I fought on student issues such as the quality of food in the lunch room, funding for academics, and the fact that the schools regularly ran out of toilet paper and had only a handful of working toilets for a school with more than 600 students.

As I got older, I began speaking on even more important topics.

The one topic that came up time and time again was religion in the schools. Ever since I was young there had been religion in the schools. While in elementary school the Gideons were allowed to hand out Bibles in the classrooms. In the fourth grade we had a substitute (who was popular with the district and used every day) who would not dismiss us for lunch without a prayer.

The Friday night football games included a prayer at the beginning of every game. If you've ever been to Texas, you know that Friday night football is almost a religion in itself-- the entire town turns out for these games and they're standing room only even though the team would only win 1 or 2 games a season.

As a child, I'd felt uncomfortable for my friends who weren't religious, but I didn't understand that it was wrong. Having been raised a Southern Baptist (I even began school at the First Baptist Church of Alta Loma), what they were doing was exactly what we were doing at church. As I grew older, I learned about the Bill of Rights and the history of our country. At that point I wasn't only uncomfortable, I knew it was wrong.

We started out by going to the principals at the school, which got you nowhere.

We then went to the superintendent-- same outcome.

We then brought in a roomful of people to ask the school board to stop allowing religion in the schools-- they refused.

With no one else to appeal to, we sought help from the American Civil Liberties Union. After meeting with them several times, the ACLU's lawyers met with the school district to try to work the situation out. The school district refused to change their position.

At that time we started looking at a lawsuit against the school. Numerous families met with the ACLU and decided to sue the district to force them to comply with separation of church and state laws.

Because of how fanatical some people in town could be about their religion, we decided it would be best if the suit was filed under the name Jane Doe. However, if we all filed the suit, it would be obvious which families had sued. We decided it would be best if only a few families actually filed the suit. There were also some people who weren't comfortable filing the suit, but did want to see things change.

In the end, two families officially sued the district.

The lawsuit took several years to go through the system. During this time, numerous meetings were held by the school board on the issue.

These meetings became very heated, with those who weren't Baptist often called "non Christians."

During this time I was still attending the church I'd been going to since the age of three-- the First Baptist Church of Alta Loma. It was a rarity for me to miss a single Sunday. Not only did I attend, but I volunteered with the younger kids in the afternoon, worked Bible School during the summer, and helped with outreach events.

Shortly after the suit was filed, that all changed.

It was just before Easter that year, and like usual I went to church that Sunday. In our morning classes, the youth minister Dick Shotwell (who was listed as a defendant on the lawsuit) spoke to the group on the suit. He heard that students were being harassed for being against religion in the schools. He asked that it stop and for everyone to not show such hatred towards others.

Later that day I attended the afternoon service (usually I helped with children's classes during this time, but they either did not need me or it was the Sunday in which the younger kids came to service as well). After the minister, Pastor Alan Splawn, spoke for a few moments on the lawsuit, he called a few other people to get up there and speak. Congressman Steve Stockman and SFISD School Board Member Mike Lopez both went up to the pulpit and bashed the families who were against religion in the schools. While names were not mentioned, he described the family the felt was responsible so well that there was no doubt who was being spoken of-- it was my family.

I could not believe they were actually being allowed to say such hateful things about a family from up there at the pulpit. I got up from the pew, left the sanctuary, and went home.

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