Photo by The Freedom From Religion Foundation is admonishing Silverton Independent School District for starting its football games with loudspeaker-broadcast prayer.
FFRF has been informed that there is prayer over the loudspeaker before every Silverton High School home football game. For instance at the Oct. 24 game, a long Christian prayer commenced the game. This was senior night, and graduating seniors football team members were celebrated.
Prayer over loudspeakers at student athletic events coerces student athletes and all others in attendance into observing and participating in a religious exercise, FFRF stresses — and that coercion is at the heart of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.
“Public school students have a constitutional right to be free from religious indoctrination in their public schools, including when attending school-sponsored events,” FFRF Patrick O’Reiley Fellow Hirsh M. Joshi writes to Silverton Independent School District Superintendent Michelle Francis. “The Supreme Court has struck down prayers at school-sponsored events.”
Student athletes are especially susceptible to coercion. Prayer at student athletic events places athletes in a dilemma: They must either worship — against their conscience — or openly dissent, risking their standing on the team. That ultimatum is exactly what the Establishment Clause guards against.
And attendee acceptance or indifference to prayer is immaterial; courts continually reaffirm that the protection of minorities’ rights is the U.S. Constitution’s touchstone. As the Supreme Court has said, “fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.” The Silverton Independent School District has a constitutional duty to remain neutral toward religion. But by having prayer at official school events, the district abridges that duty and needlessly marginalizes students who are a part of the 49 percent of Generation Z that is religiously unaffiliated.
To comply with its Establishment Clause obligations, the Silverton Independent School District must cease broadcasting school-sponsored prayer over the loudspeaker before Silverton High School football games, FFRF insists.
“Silverton ISD’s choice to host prayer before home football games is a poor one,” adds Joshi. “Almost as bad of a choice as having Dak Prescott be your franchise quarterback.”
FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor concurs.
“You are straying into the constitutional penalty zone when you have officially sanctioned prayers at football games,” she says. “Such practices cannot be condoned.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with about 40,000 members and several chapters across the country, including more than 1,700 members and a chapter in Texas. Our purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
