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Attorney Jerald Lintini recalls his youth, in light of the Supreme Court’s decision this morning to dropkick Jesus back into the public schools:
I wasn’t allowed to play football until my sophomore year of high school, when I finally got my mom to relent. I was at a public school with a mediocre-at-best team, but I liked the game, and it was great to be part of the team.
This was Cobb County, Georgia. I’m Jewish.
Games all ended with an inspirational talk in the end zone from the coach, followed by him picking a student to lead everyone in saying the Our Father prayer. The team chaplain—a local Baptist preacher—was usually on hand.
Once a year, all the coaches would gather the team in the weight room. The head coach would say that the next part was totally voluntary and anyone who wanted could get up—in front of all the coaches and the rest of the team—and leave. Then the chaplain would try to save us.
It was a sermon, there’s really no other word for it. Explicitly Christian, palpably Protestant, right there in the public school locker room. At the end, he’d pass out little cards where we could pledge our souls to Jesus Christ. Most of the team was fine signing them.
I turned in a blank card and got a blank stare, like the chaplain didn’t think I understood how to sign my name. I think I was the only Jew on the team at that point, but there were a few Muslims in the same boat. All of us were both uncomfortable and, honestly, used to it.
Cobb Co. was the school system that put “evolution is a theory, not a fact” stickers in its biology textbooks. It’s where Leo Frank was lynched in August 1915. We’d lost out on hosting any 1996 Olympic events because of an anti-gay resolution our county commission adopted.
When I was born, our congressman was the president of the John Birch Society: when I started high school, our congressman was Newt Gingrich.
My point is, as close as we were to Atlanta and as cosmopolitan as we pretended to be, it was a county run by and for white Evangelicals.
The good news is, Cobb got better.
The bad news is, for kids like I was, and parents like I am, who don’t want our kids proselytized in public schools, the law just got decidedly worse.
Anyhow, that was a real nice Establishment Clause we had there once.
I wasn’t allowed to play football until my sophomore year of high school, when I finally got my mom to relent. I was at a public school with a mediocre-at-best team, but I liked the game, and it was great to be part of the team.
This was Cobb County, Georgia. I’m Jewish.
Games all ended with an inspirational talk in the end zone from the coach, followed by him picking a student to lead everyone in saying the Our Father prayer. The team chaplain—a local Baptist preacher—was usually on hand.
Once a year, all the coaches would gather the team in the weight room. The head coach would say that the next part was totally voluntary and anyone who wanted could get up—in front of all the coaches and the rest of the team—and leave. Then the chaplain would try to save us.
It was a sermon, there’s really no other word for it. Explicitly Christian, palpably Protestant, right there in the public school locker room. At the end, he’d pass out little cards where we could pledge our souls to Jesus Christ. Most of the team was fine signing them.
I turned in a blank card and got a blank stare, like the chaplain didn’t think I understood how to sign my name. I think I was the only Jew on the team at that point, but there were a few Muslims in the same boat. All of us were both uncomfortable and, honestly, used to it.
Cobb Co. was the school system that put “evolution is a theory, not a fact” stickers in its biology textbooks. It’s where Leo Frank was lynched in August 1915. We’d lost out on hosting any 1996 Olympic events because of an anti-gay resolution our county commission adopted.
When I was born, our congressman was the president of the John Birch Society: when I started high school, our congressman was Newt Gingrich.
My point is, as close as we were to Atlanta and as cosmopolitan as we pretended to be, it was a county run by and for white Evangelicals.
The good news is, Cobb got better.
The bad news is, for kids like I was, and parents like I am, who don’t want our kids proselytized in public schools, the law just got decidedly worse.
Anyhow, that was a real nice Establishment Clause we had there once.
