Arguing the case “presents issues of utmost importance for religious liberty in this country,” a Tampa Christian school wants the U.S. Supreme Court to take up a years-long battle about whether the school should have been barred from offering a prayer over a stadium loudspeaker before a high-school football championship game.
Attorneys for Cambridge Christian School last week filed a 37-page petition urging the Supreme Court to overturn a decision last year by a panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which sided with the Florida High School Athletic Association.
The appeals-court panel concluded that announcements over the loudspeaker at the 2015 championship game at Orlando’s Camping World Stadium were “government speech,” as they were scripted and controlled by the athletic association. It said the association’s decision to block a prayer over the public-address system did not violate free-speech rights.
But the petition filed at the Supreme Court described that ruling as “egregiously wrong” and alleged potentially far-reaching effects if it is not overturned. It cited other legal decisions and said the appeals court opened “the door for the reemergence of the very religious intolerance that this (Supreme) Court has endeavored to stamp out in a string of cases over the last two decades.”
“If the Eleventh Circuit’s boundless version of government speech stands, state actors will be able to claim that virtually all private speech and religious exercise in a government setting lacks First Amendment protection,” wrote the school’s attorneys, including lawyers from the Texas-based First Liberty Institute and Jesse Panuccio, a former general counsel to then-Gov. Rick Scott.
The case stems from a championship game between Cambridge Christian and Jacksonville’s University Christian School. While the athletic association, a non-profit governing body for high-school sports, denied the use of the loudspeaker, the teams prayed on the field before and after the game. Those prayers could not be heard by people in the stands.
U.S. District Judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell initially dismissed the case in 2017, but the Atlanta-based appeals court in 2019 overturned the dismissal and sent the case back to Honeywell for further consideration. That led to Honeywell in 2022 ruling again in favor of the athletic association, which prompted another appeal by Cambridge Christian.
In last year’s decision, the appeals-court panel pointed, in part, to the association’s control over what was said over the loudspeaker.
“At the 2015 football finals, the only person who made announcements over the PA system at any point during the game was the PA announcer,” the appeals-court decision said. “His announcements were entirely scripted (except for a halftime announcement about the game’s statistical leaders which, of course, couldn’t be scripted in advance). Every word of that script was put there by an FHSAA employee.”
But the school’s petition to the Supreme Court, partially quoting a 2022 precedent, said the appeals-court decision “presents issues of utmost importance for religious liberty in this country. If the decision stands, it will be virtually impossible to overcome government speech defenses, and the government will again be empowered ‘to single out private religious speech for special disfavor.’”
“On virtually every doctrinal point, the decision below egregiously departs from this (Supreme) Court’s teachings,” the petition said. “If left standing, it presents a grave threat to religious speech and exercise.”
The athletic association faces a July 10 deadline for filing a response to the petition.
Amid the case, Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature in 2023 approved a law that required allowing high schools to offer “brief opening remarks” — which could include prayers — before championship events. The appeals court said that made moot parts of the lawsuit but that it needed to rule on the First Amendment issues because Cambridge Christian sought “nominal damages.”
–Jim Saunders, News Service of Florida
Glenn Sims says
Absolutely! If we don’t bring our Christian God back to our society including our schools the Muslims will take us over. They are on video admitting that there goal is to convert us all to Allah or kill us.
Deborah Coffey says
LOL. Real Christians would not try to FORCE their practices on others. I’m beginning to feel embarrassed to admit I’m a Christian.
Millions of these “Christians” put a liar, a rapist (according to the judge in the E. Jean Carroll case), a tax fraud, a racist, a bigot, a philanderer, and a greed monger in our White House. The hypocrisy is overwhelming.
Pierre Tristam says
Oh gees. I never took the slums of Islamabad or the playboys of Kuwait City to be much for Gator—let alone Tampa—football. Manchester City? Paris Saint Germain? Maybe. But the sharia shimmers own those already and somehow the teams’ fandom still (alas) damns god every Saturday game day according to the Christian liturgy. But whatever.
Dennis C Rathsam says
When I went to school, we said the pledge of allegiance to the flag of our great country. Then we said the lords prayer! Our money says in god we trust!!! It was good enough for our forefathers, its good enough for me.
Laurel says
My Christian husband states that “You teach by example, not by shouting over a megaphone or a loudspeaker.”
Maybe more people should consider this.
When we went to see the Rolling Stones last year, at Camping World Stadium, there were two people in the crowd outside the stadium, not there to see the concert but there to try to yell and embarrass people into religious submission, by megaphone. Of course, everyone simply walked by what most considered the two crazies.
So, what method is better, to be a good person with good intentions and good actions, or being a crazy?
Preach science! says
What horrible stuff forcing your religion down someone’s throat! Read satans prayer over the speaker as well! Religion is foolish. I have my kids bring the Quran to be read to the children as well!!! Christianity is more of tax scheme to avoid taxes. Its always the “religious” people that are worst and have no compassion for others! Look who the “Christians elected! Look what they have done since their leader took office and starved children! Yeah nothing! Anyways i think most the current “Christians” are gonna burn baby burn!🔥 the taliban is government and church combined. We know orange terrorist loved them!
Punch a nazi says
Science is my religion and the orange terror has been stopping me from my religious practices by removing facts and research and even any story about anyone other than a white man. No shit. Welcome to racist murikkka where we wanna force religion on the stupid. End the Nazi terror republicans! They just want to indoctrinate hate!!!!!
Endless dark money says
The republicons are a terrorist organization that want full control of people to benefit the oligarchs. Profits is all that matters. Im still betting 50 million plus dead before this terror is stopped! The “Christian’s” overwhelmingly supported trump as they did the KKK! They apparently didn’t read or comprehend what the Bible says about immigrants! They were told to hate them by an orange terrorist so they did! Pray for those at the concentration camps that were sent there against their will and without due process! Don’t allow the gop terror group to indoctrinate hate at our schools!
Skibum says
Was it not good enough that the U.S. Supreme Court has previously issued a nationwide ruling that allowed individuals to pray in our schools if they wished to do so? Was it not additionally sufficient that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the coach who gathered his team in the endzone of the football field either before or after each game for a group prayer, even if it seemed some of the players may have felt intimidated and coerced into taking part for fear of being ostracized, or worse, penalized, if they refused?
Now, once again, this public incantation of prayer in schools raises its ugly head as yet another school that should be concentrating on educating young people instead of indoctrinating them in the school’s ideologically driven views of religion tries to drastically escalate this issue by their efforts not to merely pray, but they want to blast it out over loudspeakers to everyone within hearing distance. This conjures up visions of videos I have seen in Middle Eastern countries who use such loudspeakers to call the faithful to prayer each day, which is fine, but certainly NOT the business of any school to have such prurient religious efforts normalized and blasted out for all to hear whether they wanted to listen or not!
What’s next? Will American children be forced to swear allegience to one specific religious faith in this country? Will those who choose to adhere to one of the middle eastern religions be denied educational opportunities simply because they don’t follow America’s approved religious belief system?
Citizens, which of course still includes school children at the time of this writing at least, are guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights that they have freedom of religion which also means freedom from religion if they so choose. Nobody enrolls in school for religion. Children are given an education to develop their brains with the knowledge that they will need for the remainder of their lives, and religion is supposed to be taught or practiced in our churches – NOT schools! When will this idiocy stop? Even many Christians oppose this nonsense.