[The Boston Globe Online][Boston.com] [Boston Globe Online / Editorials | Opinion] [ Send this story to a friend | Easy-print version | Add to Daily User ] Right choice by Supreme Court on payer By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist, 6/21/2000 [Image]he Supreme Court has ruled that we cannot solemnize public high school football games with pregame prayers. The court ruled, 6-3, that the Santa Fe Independent School District, near Galveston, Texas, was wrong to let students deliver prayers before the kickoff. In one such prayer last season, Santa Fe High School student Marian Ward, wearing her band uniform, said: ''I have chosen to solemnize this game. And if you want to participate, bow your heads and give thanks to the Lord. Lord, thank you for this evening. Thank you for all the prayers that were lifted up this week for me. ''I pray that you watch over each and every person here tonight, especially those involved in the game. Just be with the fans. And just be with each and every one of us as we go home. ''In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.'' The court being the court, it struck down such prayers with an insomnia-curing solemnity that left no room to blitz and sack the absurdities. Writing for the majority, Justice John Paul Stevens, said, ''School sponsorship of a religious message is impermissible because it sends the ancillary message to members of the audience who are nonadherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community. ''The delivery of such a message - over the school's public address system by a speaker representing the student body, under the supervision of school faculty and pursuant to a school policy that explicitly and implicitly encourages public prayer - is not properly characterized as private speech.'' Enough of the 50-cent words. The court made the right choice in the five-year-old suit brought by a Mormon family and a Catholic family who were offended by the prayers. It is not the whole story. What the court could not say in its solemn trashing of solemnizing is what an incongruity pregame prayers are. The Associated Press photo that ran in the nation's newspapers this week of Ward praying from the public address booth as the fans bowed their heads in the stands, had me thinking that Jesse Ventura might actually have a point. Ventura, the wrestling crackpot who managed to become governor of Minnesota, offended much of the nation when he said, ''organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business.'' I believe in God, Jesus is up there as a role model, and I like football. But anyone who confuses the Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost with the gridiron trinity of mayhem, manhandling, and maiming is leaning on a fragile set of crutches. No prayer, no assembly of bowed heads, no show of reverence can gloss over the obvious. All these students, parents, teachers, and community leaders are in the stadium is to see their team crush the other team. The Bible may talk about David slaying Goliath, but, please, you cannot find a single person in a typical stadium who wants to be David at kickoff time. The Good Book may want us to be good Samaritans, but in football gracious gestures of assistance from opponents only happen after the opponent is sufficiently secure that either: A. You are flat on your back, after a 10-yard-loss; B. You have had the wind knocked out of you; C. You have a concussion; or D. You are being wheeled off the field with torn knee cartilage. Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, said, ''Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present evil age.'' That would not seem to be quite the interest of college scouts who scour the high school flesh under the armor of shoulder pads. They are not there to pray. They are not there to find players who buck evil authority. They are looking for running backs with the wiles of Tasmanian devils and behemoth linemen who pound their opponents into a bloody pulp. With 24 hours in a day and seven days in a week to pray, it is interesting to see people try to turn football stadiums into churches. Perhaps the need to crudely overwhelm a stadium with a prevailing religion befits the American team sport most crudely dependent on overwhelming opponents with brute strength. Perhaps the prayers are also a cover for the obvious. You have to admit, even if you are a football fan, that it is a stupid game. No parent in the abstract would tell his or her son, ''Say, Johnny, go to the corner and get your chest caved in.'' Yet tens of thousands of parents do it every fall in America. Our children are out there on the field in the American trinity of mayhem, manhandling, and maiming. The folks in the stands pray, probably because it ain't Jesus and the heavens who will be lifting up their son on the next play. It will be that 6-foot-2, 250-pound nose tackle, straight from hell. Derrick Z. Jackson is a Globe columnist. This story ran on page A21 of the Boston Globe on 6/21/2000. © Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company. [ Send this story to a friend | Easy-print version | Add to Daily User ]