Christian students from Ashdown High School in Arkansas are not letting atheists from the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) bully them out of their right to pray.
The FFRF recently sent a letter to the school district, saying school officials should put a stop to pre-game prayers during school-sponsored athletic events, according to EAGnews.org.
Students were enraged when they found out about the letter, so much so that during last Friday's game, student spectators, coaches, referees, and players from opposing teams gathered on the field and conducted one huge prayer session.
"We are not going to stop any student who wants to exercise their freedom of religious expression such as a prayer," Ashdown Superintendent Jason Sanders told KSLA. "As for the situation Friday night, I think that is a great example of student freedom and the rights of students to express themselves religiously and the government should not get involved and keep them from doing that."
Sanders told KTBS that he consulted with the Alliance for Defending Freedom about the FFRF complaint, and they deduced that the school district did not violate any law when they led the students in prayer.
"We feel like that the freedom of our students to express themselves will hold up in a court of law," he said.
First Baptist Church Pastor Butch Riddle thinks that the FFRF might have wanted to stop prayers in schools by penning their letter of complaint. But their act backfired as all they did instead was bolster students and teachers' desire to pray even more, he said.
"It's encouraged the students to understand that they can in fact pray in many different ways and different times," Riddle said. "You cannot really legislate morality. You cannot legislate religious conviction."
