The case came out of the small town of Santa Fe, about 50 miles southeast of Houston. In 1995 two students at Santa Fe High School, one Mormon and one Catholic, challenged the pregame prayer as a violation of the Establishment Clause. The U.S. district judge upheld football game prayer by applying the rule from another Texas case that allowed student-led, nonproselytizing, and nonsectarian prayers at graduation ceremonies. Evidently, the judges on the Fifth Circuit Court don't go to many football games. If they did, they would know that in Texas, high school football is the official and established religion of the state.
Nothing is more solemn and sacred to such fans.
This case illustrates several aspects to the current debate over religion and public institutions. Everyone involved in such disputes, no matter which side they are on, recognizes that under the U.S. Constitution, government can neither establish nor prohibit religious exercises. Disputes often center on which of these two violations is in question. In the Santa Fe case the school district argued that pregame prayer is a religious liberty right of the students. Representing the Santa Fe schools before the Supreme Court, Jay Sekulow, of the American Center for Law and Justice, argued that the pregame policy of allowing only student-led prayer was neutral and fostered free speech.