Texas Activism: Friday night lights and Sunday morning sermons

Submitted by Jenni on June 24, 2005 - 11:26pm.

During this same time, my family received much backlash from people in the community. Students in my classes, including children of school administrators, were allowed to openly bash me in class. My sisters were harassed in school, sometimes even pushed against lockers. My father, a self-employed contractor, saw a drop in his business. We even had to ge caller id because of the number of threats we received.

All the while it was obvious that we were not one of the families that had sued. The description of the two families-- a Mormom family with a daughter and a son, and a Catholic family that had put two sons through the school-- did not match our family. We were a Baptist family with four daughters, no sons.

Over the next few years, we had many meetings, depositions, court dates, etc. on this issue. People in the town only got more and more hateful and vindictive on the issue.

I testified in Galveston in front of US District Court Judge in 1996, the first stage of the trial. My testimony was to cover the Gideons being on campus (and not just on the sidewalks as stated by the school district) and to show a pattern of years of breaking the law. Luckily, I had been smart enough as a young child to write my name and date in that Gideon Bible I had received in class. Even smarter, I had kept it all those years and it was entered into evidence at the trial.

In October of 1999, we held silent protests outside the football stadium against an invocation being given over the loud speaker. People who walked into the stadium called us names, cursed at teens, told us we were going to hell, etc. We had been required to pay for Santa Fe police officers to be out at the protest with us; however, they were of no help.

When people pushed teens and other protestors, the officers told them to "push them back." When people who were protesting on the other side (illegally) came onto school property (something we could not do), they were given high-fives by the officers.

It all came to a head in 2000 when the U.S. Supreme Court took up the issue. All along the way the courts had ruled against the schools. The school district kept appealing, and the case finally ended up with the highest court of the land.

After spending some time reading through all of the information, court records, etc. the Supreme Court ruled against the school district and stated they could not do prayer at the football games (they had selected this one issue to appeal on with the Supreme Court).

As of this last school year, they were still doing prayers at the games.

Numerous stories and news reports were done on this topic. Oprah's "O" network did a special on it as well. There was also a great write-up in the Houston Free Press, but I can't seem to find the story at the moment. I'll put it online when I find it.

Here are some of the stories and reports on this topic:

• Pray

• Will The Supreme Court Rule Texas Football Prayer Out Of Bounds?

• Supreme Court Blows The Whistle On School Sponsored Prayer At Football Games

• Once again, high court asked to decide on prayer at school

• What Is Religion's Place in Public Life?

• Court to eye prayer

• Student in school prayer fight mentions Jesus during graduation

• The rights of the few

• Texas Schools React to Prayer Rule

• In wake of court ruling, "moment of silence" and graduation prayer are new legal battle grounds

• Prayer ban broadened in schools