School nixes Christian football banners

FORT OGLETHORPE, Ga., Oct. 1 (UPI) -- A Georgia school superintendent has told a high school cheerleading squad it may no longer parade Christian scriptural banners at football games.

"Personally, I appreciate this expression of their Christian values," Catoosa County School Superintendent Denia Reese said in a statement. "However, as superintendent I have the responsibility of protecting the school district from legal action by groups who do not support their beliefs."

The cheerleaders of Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High School displayed banners with biblical verses during the football games. The banners -- the sort that players burst through as they enter the field -- included such scriptural verses as "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

The cheerleaders were "just using scripture to show motivation and inspiration to the players and the fans" and weren't trying to push Christianity, youth minister Brad Scott told the Chattanooga (Tenn.) Times Free Press.

"Our Founding Fathers had one thing in mind when they founded this country, and it was a Christian nation built upon the principles of Jesus Christ," Republican state Rep. Jay Neal said at a rally to protest the ban.

Religious studies Professor Robert Fuller of Bradley University, the author of "Spiritual But Not Religious," wrote that only about 15 percent of U.S. colonists belonged to a church and Americans have always had "a persistent interest in religious ideas that fall well outside the parameters of Bible-centered theology."

Reese said the cheerleader have a legal right to display the banners outside the stadium.