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Staff Photo by Angela Lewis Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe cheerleaders Aubree White, center, Taylor Moulton, left and Christin Willingham, right, practice at the school.
Six weeks after their Scripture-quoting banners were prohibited, two Lake-view-Fort Oglethorpe High School cheerleaders remain unapologetic in their opposition to the ban.
But they understand it.
“Stand up for what you believe in, but don’t get the school involved in a losing fight,” senior cheerleader Taylor Guinn said.
Miss Guinn and fellow cheerleader Aubree White said the controversy — which spread nationwide and even was mentioned on “Saturday Night Live” — seems like a long time ago.
But they defend the decision of Catoosa County Superintendent Denia Reese to say such banners — the ones football players plow through as they take the field before a game — could not be used inside the system’s football stadiums. Mrs. Reese said the banners could be set up outside the stadiums in a specific area.
The girls said they didn’t like talk of suing the school system and “coming down on Denia Reese” for the ban. Both said their parents discussed with them why the legal decision to enact the ban was made.
“She (Mrs. Reese) is not the one that took them away,” Miss Guinn said. “She’s got to follow the laws.”
Before the school’s last game in September, an LFO parent commented to Mrs. Reese that the banners could cause someone to file suit against the system and Mrs. Reese issued the ban the following day.
In the days that followed, the controversy landed on the pages of The New York Times, on national television network newscasts and in countless opinion columns all over the United States.
The cheerleaders said they expected reaction from detractors who supported the ban but were surprised by the persistent discussion and how far the story reached across the country.
“Almost every week since it happened, we’ve received letters from different schools everywhere,” Miss Guinn said. “It’s a big change to be recognized positively — and negatively.”
Miss White said she’s tried to follow some of the discussion and searches for mentions of her and fellow cheerleaders’ names on the Internet.
“Our cheerleading coach has told us she gets letters and e-mails constantly still,” she said.
“They’re still expressing their opinions,” Miss Guinn said with a smile.
Some comments on the ban questioned how the cheerleaders would have felt if a student of another faith wanted to use a religious quote of her own for a run-through banner. The girls said they probably wouldn’t have been tolerant of such a suggestion before the ban and ensuing controversy started.
“Before it started it would have just been like, ‘You’re the only one. No, we’re not putting that up there,’” Miss Guinn said. “Not to sound negative, but let’s be realistic.
“Now we know the legality of it,” she said.
After the experience, Miss Guinn said she would urge a religion-neutral message that would be allowable under law. Most religions have some common moral messages, she said.
“I feel like what we put up were morally good quotes. It was just the fact that it was a biblical Scripture,” she said. “If someone of a different religion wanted to pull something from theirs, I don’t think people would be able to tell the difference unless they were (educated) on that religion.”
Both girls said the national debate over the issue left them worried about the state of the country. Miss White said it made her aware of how different other people are from those in her community.
“I think it shows how far this country has gone away from its foundings and its Founding Fathers and what they believed in,” Miss Guinn said.
The girls said they thought the country was founded on Christianity. Miss Guinn said that people who say the country’s founders tried to keep religion out of government are ignoring some telling points.
“I think if that were the case, then God wouldn’t be mentioned in our pledge (of allegiance) and it wouldn’t be mentioned anywhere if that were their intentions,” Miss Guinn said. “But when you sit through a U.S. history class ... God is a dominant figure in why they founded this country.”
Congress added the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954 specifically to separate the United States from the atheistic communism of the Soviet Union.
The U.S. Constitution and First Amendment in the Bill of Rights lack any mention of God or Christianity and refer only to the freedom of choice and speech.
And the cheerleaders said they also failed to see the humor in a short spoof on “Saturday Night Live” in which cast member Seth Meyers joked that Jesus “once said to the Pharisees, ‘Push ’em back, push ’em back, waaaaaay back.’”
“I didn’t find it humorous,” Miss Guinn said. “Just coming from ‘Saturday Night Live,’ you just expect it to be mocking things that they shouldn’t be mocking and that they have no right to mock.”
Overall, the experience strengthened their Christian faith and invigorated the Christians in their hometown, they said.
“It wasn’t just 16 girls standing up for what they believed in; it was an entire community,” Miss Guinn said.
Ben Benton is a news reporter at the Chattanooga Times Free Press. He covers Southeast Tennessee and previously covered North Georgia education. Ben has worked at the Times Free Press since November 2005, first covering Bledsoe and Sequatchie counties and later adding Marion, Grundy and other counties in the northern and western edges of the region to his coverage. He was born and raised in Cleveland, Tenn., a graduate of Bradley Central High School. Benton ...
Musta missed all those boring history classes, huh? But that's ok, preacher apparently filled in the gap. GAG!
It's probably too strong to say that the US was "founded on Christianity", but right there in the Declaration of Independence our founders said this: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Those truths find their expression in (among other places) the first amendment, which addresses five specific freedoms - exercise of religion, speech, press, peaceful assembly and petitioning the government for redress of grievances. To boil that down to "freedom of choice and speech" - well, that looks like someone is following an agenda to me. Maybe the reporter got that from some preacher.
Oh that BEN BENTON!!! What a wonderful reporter. He always gets his facts right and when he is finished with a story??? is he ever finished with a story??? oh, it was just a story, he just never seems to have time to report on factual items that have been presented to him although he states he will follow up on the issues. These facts actually have to do with education in schools. Imagine that??? Education in schools?? I see a very bright future for Mr. Benton. Perhaps a national news organization will take him from us and them, OH MY, what will we do for our news??? Even Saturday Night Live had fun with this one!! YOU ROCK BEN!!!
wasarl: Most of the founding fathers were atheists, fool.
rdecredico: Then who wrote the Declaration?
Nowhere in the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, or any of our laws does it mention Jesus Christ. Maybe the Founding Fathers were Christians, but the demographics of our country today are not.
"...the demographics of our country today are not [Christian]".
As a consequence, we have become what most of the countries from whence came these "demographics"...a balkanized third-world, third-rate country.
I weep for my country that was.
Boo hoo
I'm with you rolando. And ricardo, your last post is ill mannered and inappropriate. I'm sorry I guess we're not supposed to get personal are we?
“I feel like what we put up were morally good quotes. It was just the fact that it was a biblical Scripture,” she said. “If someone of a different religion wanted to pull something from theirs, I don’t think people would be able to tell the difference unless they were (educated) on that religion.”
"Some comments on the ban questioned how the cheerleaders would have felt if a student of another faith wanted to use a religious quote of her own for a run-through banner. The girls said they probably wouldn’t have been tolerant of such a suggestion before the ban and ensuing controversy started."
Does anybody else see the issue here in these two quotes by the same individual??? If more Christians practiced their "tolerance" I would have less of an issue with them shoving their scripture down our throats, but they don't. Christians only feel the need to invoke the "freedom of speech" argument when it's THEIR religion that they're protecting.
I wonder if she saw the irony of her comment about Christians being the majority in Fort Oglethorpe, contrasted by the amount of interest in the broader media. I think she is oblivious that there are other religions in other regions of the country that are not majority Christian.
The primary leaders of the so-called founding fathers of our nation were not bible-believing christians; they were deists.
Deism was a philosophical belief that was widely accepted by the colonial intelligentsia at the time of the American Revolution.
Its major tenets included belief in human reason as a reliable means of solving social and political problems and belief in a supreme deity who created the universe to operate solely by natural laws.
The supreme god of the deists removed itself entirely from the universe after creating it. They believed that it assumed no control over it, exerted no influence on natural phenomena, and gave no supernatural revelation to man.
A necessary consequence of these beliefs was a rejection of many doctrines central to the christian religion.
Deists did not believe in the virgin birth, divinity, or resurrection of Jesus, the efficacy of prayer, the miracles of the bible, or even the divine inspiration of the bible.
Thomas Jefferson literally cut and pasted the non mumbo jumbo magic crap from the christian bible to create his own edit titled 'The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth' aka 'The Jefferson Bible'.
What amazes me is that this country (not nation) was founded by people wishing to escape religous persicution. Today, the christians have taken on the role that drove the original colonists away from Europe. If you don't believe in their brainwashing and cult worshiping, your beneath them Last time I looked in a church, I saw hypocrites, a a fashion show, gossip session and power struggle, not to mention hands out for money. Religion is fine, kept in context and in church where it belongs, NOT in public school or in government.
How many more times is this going to be brought up?
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