Columnist Dean Juipe: No praying tonight at prep games

Dean Juipe

Friday, Sept. 1, 2000 | 10:54 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

We don't pray much before football games in Nevada, which is just as well.

It's a big issue in some parts of the country, particularly the South, after the Supreme Court ruled by a 6-3 vote in June that organized prayer facilitated in any manner by a secondary school is unconstitutional.

The edict was directed at the nation's high schools and was designed to put the clamps on pregame prayers at football games. It came before the high court after a Mormon and a Catholic filed suit in Sante Fe, Texas, claiming that student-led prayer over a loudspeaker crossed the line into sponsorship of prayer or worship by a government institution.

Nonetheless, there were at least a dozen instances nationwide last weekend in which prayer was conducted and the law was violated. Civil liberties experts expect a lawsuit to be filed against one of the more brazen offenders, Batesburg-Leesville High School in South Carolina, which defiantly allowed its student-body president to lead a pregame prayer from the press box.

Nevada high schools open their football seasons in earnest tonight and, despite the state's rebellious nature, there's no hint of rebellion on this point. The script should be the same at every game site: the teams will take the field, the national anthem will be played, the toss of the coin will be held, and one team or the other will kick off.

The spectators will not be goaded into prayer or subjected to listening to others around them pray as a teacher or student uses the p.a. system to appeal to God for an injury-free game or a victory for the home team.

Likewise, when UNLV opens its home season in two weeks against North Texas, prayer won't be part of the pregame ritual even though the recent Supreme Court ruling does not prohibit organized prayer at the collegiate level. At least one school, the University of Tennessee, will continue its tradition of having a minister give an invocation prior to the game when the Volunteers host Southern Mississippi on Saturday.

Colleges are exempt from the Supreme Court ruling by virtue of the belief their students are older and more mature, therefore making them less likely to respond to organized or even spontaneous group prayer.

But the law is very specific as it pertains to high schools: No petitioning the Lord or begging for His favor.

Of course the mere notion that the Man Upstairs would grant special requests related to sporting events on Earth has perplexed the skeptical since the first Our Father was uttered with Red Grange awaiting a kickoff in the end zone.

But the cynical haven't kept the zealots from grabbing a microphone and imploring the Lord to crush the opposition -- and to do it without any of the favored sons getting hurt. Even with the court ruling against them, many in the pro-prayer crowd seem eager to continue the fight.

And they're a strong enough group that Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura, commenting on a related matter earlier this week, said "I don't believe an atheist could be elected in this country today."

But atheists have rights, too, and one of them is the protection from prayer at a football game. Of course that doesn't mean you can't whisper a little something, just in case the creator can be swayed.