Because God is a Kountz Jaguar Fan
People from foreign states don’t fully recognize the importance of high school football in small Texas towns.
I remember about 20 years ago when the Democratic National Committee sent some Yankee yahoo to my area of Texas to teach us how to win elections. He planned the first big fundraiser on the same night as the high school homecoming game. We tried to explain to him that homecoming involved parking lot barbeques, big ole honker corsages, booked hotel rooms, and enough enough noise to be heard a mile against the breeze. Everybody in town shows up for homecoming.
“Awww…. it’s just a football game,” he argued and proceeded to have the fundraiser that night. Two people showed up – one drunk and one lost. I determined then and there to never give another dime to the DNC and I haven’t.
It appears that high school football in Texas has become so big that God has taken an interest and is picking sides. Personally, I’m kinda disappointed that God waited so long to do this. I mean, I’m not questioning God, but wouldn’t a better time to pick sides is when Christians were being fed to the lions?
Better late than never, I guess, because God is right here right now. In Texas.
A judge ruled Wednesday that cheerleaders at a Southeast Texas high school can display banners emblazoned with Bible verses at football games.
State District Judge Steven Thomas determined the Kountze High School cheerleaders’ banners are constitutionally permissible. In the ruling, Thomas determined that no law “prohibits cheerleaders from using religious-themed banners at school sporting events.”
And by religious, the judge means Christian. And not just any Christian either – just the Super DeLux Fancy Grade A ones.
The place they want to put religious messages is on something called a run-through banner. At the beginning of the game, the cheerleaders hold up a giant banner and team runs through it, destroying it viciously, on their way on the field.
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These are the same people who would pitch a walleyed snot nosed hissy fit if someone destroyed a flag, but violently tearing up Bible verses seems to have meaning for them I’d rather not psychologically explore because it would probably freak me out.
But just to be real clear about which God we are talking about, it ain’t one of them lesser gods —
.
Now people have asked me why there’s not this craziness over basketball, baseball, or track. Well, duh. Those pansy sports do not involve getting to hurt another person. God likes that hurting people stuff and we know God does because why else would a judge in Texas answer our prayers to invoke his name at football games.
See, this is not complicated.
Thanks to Hilary for the first heads up.
The religious wars come to “Friday Night Lights”. Thanks to this judge’s ruling, “God gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” banners will spread like a West Texas wild fire to every athletic event across the state. Not only will non-Christian athletes, students and spectators feel ostracized but surely the losing team will feel that their “Lord” abandoned them that night. They will just have to pray real extra-hard prior to the next game, won’t they now?
1On the whole, I appreciate and enjoy yankees, even having married one, but we Democrats in Foat Wurth* have had similar misfortunes with national candidates foisting young, know-it-all outlanders on us to tell us how to campaign to our neighbors. Regrettably, the worst of the worst, often Harvard students, were sent here by the Kennedys. Too often they left town without paying their bills leaving a bad taste in the mouths of local merchants, sullying the Party’s reputation, and leaving a cumber to future dealings with printers, landlords, and pizza restaurants.
*Fort Worth is also known as “Foat Wurth” as in the Michael Murphy’s song: I’ve got a red and blue tattoo on the muscle of my arm and it says “Foat wurth, I luv yew!”
2It seems that in Texas, religion has gone off the rails thanks to “fans” of Jesus. This is not spiritual behavior, it is celebrity fan behavior. Sad, sad, and sadder still.
3You know, I’d think a real Christian would say those cheerleaders were taking the name of the Lord in vain.
4You’ve gotta worry about kids who believe in a God who cares which school wins a football game, and about the adults in their lives who encourage them to believe it. Sigh.
5Maybe somebody just needs to make a big ol’ honkin’ banner that says “Matthew 6:6” on it…Or a different translation thereof for every game…
6How about a banner that says “Matthew 25:31-46? Jesus’s insistance on justice would likely offend or at least make uncomfortable many of the fans, present.
7So what happens when they lose?
8I wonder what would happen if a group of Muslims showed up with a large sign thanking Allah for the beautiful weather at the football game one night?
9Let’s not forget that this was a hotbed of Klan activity not too many years ago so the leap from racial intolerance to religious intolerance aint that far. What message are they sending out to those who aren’t as rabid as they are?
Here’s betting that the hack judge who made the ruling is a Second Baptist deacon or such.
10Lorraine – I’ll tell you what would happen. There’d be a bonfire, and it wouldn’t just be the banner brought by the Muslims fueling the fire.
You’d think folks in Texas would get a clue when Rick Perry’s prayer for rain to break the drought a year or two ago got properly ignored by God…
11It’s the “Us is better” culture, which has nothing to do with the basic tenets of any religion, just one-up-manship. The key word in that first banner is the word IF.
12Reminds me of one Sunday which happened to be Earth Day. I was playing with folks and went around saying “Happy Earth Day!” Some replied, Happy Earth Day to you too. Others said “how do you celebrate it?” and I told them I was going to an event at the park. One lady said, disapprovingly, “But they’ll have BANDS!” I said “don’t worry, the bands are at the other end of the park.” Folks read the parts of the Bible they want to and ignore the others.
13Gee, I are almost impressed! Here in Northern Virginia we get county police helicopters buzzing overhead during Friday night games to make sure everyone is behaving theirselves.
And doesn’t anyone at these high schools remember the Second World War? The Nazis had a saying printed on their stuff in German that the yanks translated as “got mittens”. Their response was “we got mittens too.” Very good to remember this.
14It also reminds me of when we were breaking in new preachers in our little country church. It happened fairly often since they usually were graduate students in Abilene. I would try to tell them that it didn’t matter what was going on in town, if a ball game or tournament were happening, the place to be was at THE SCHOOL. Most of them never caught on but a few did.
15Send them your own religious saying at:
http://www.kountzeisd.org/
The “Send Message” tab is at the lower left corner of the site!
16A few years ago my husband and I were “treated” to a viewing of my niece’s high school band’s halftime performance. The niece was the drum major. It was all I could do to watch the band and the crowd rock on to Onward! Christian Soldiers, and 3 or 4 other religious hymns, while the band performed precision marching formations. When my sister asked me how I liked the halftime show, I was almost speechless…. so I croaked out “interesting selection of music.” My ever affable husband laughed and said, “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a football halftime performance turn into a gospel meeting before, only thing missing was the tent.” Welcome to the Bible Belt…. and yes, the sister was highly offended, the point being that Friday Night Lights and Jesus have been in an incestuous relationship from the beginning. It never occurs to any of the participants that there is anything wrong, or unusual about it, or that this happens “only in Texas”. And further… that everyone else in the country is missing a sterling opportunity to put some scripture on banners and play halftime hymns, too. It’s interesting to observe the fervor.
17I kept getting emails from the DNC (or someone…) wanting me to contribute to the funds to help defeat the Appalachian hiker out there in the south somewhere….I didn’t give a dime, because when is the last time money was seriously given to fund a Democrat campaign here in Texas, where it is sorely needed?
Ok on the other thing: now that this school does this, how many times will the other team make a good tackle or sack the quarterback and really get into their head by saying: Where is your God now?
18and football is the only sport (in america) to use a ball shaped like a testicle….strange coincidence or compelling reason for further study?
19Lets remember that the pledge of Alligence does not commonly end with ‘Hail Satan!’
20Cliff – My memory of the Pledge of Allegiance?
“I pledge allegiance to the flag
Of the United States of America
And to the country for which it stands
One nation
Indivisible
With Liberty and Justice for All.”
Notice anything missing there? Nope, I still won’t say it today.
21I am with you, TalG. The phrase inserted the Pledge of Allegiance in the 1950s ruins the cadence of the whole thing. And, as for the DNC, I ignore it ever since that arrogant fool Terry McAuliffe ran the place. I give money to the DFA and individual Dems and progressives.
22I’m with you on thinking that ripping Bible verses to shreds and stomping on them might be considered a tad sacrilegious in some circles.
23So, if their God/Jesus gives them the victory that means their God/Jesus does not love the other team? Or if this team loses to the other team the next time they play each other, or to any other team, their God/Jesus has turned “his” back on them? Is God/Jesus that fickle?
With all the abused, homeless, sick, starving, etc (it’s along list) people in the world their God/Jesus takes time to preside over a football game??? What a horrible perversion of “holy scripture.” No wonder church attendance is declining in this country. What thinking person wants a God/Jesus like that?
Me either, TalG and VeeGee in VT, me either.
24Why are these signs so mealy-mouthed? Why not say what they really mean?
“We Fundies are more Godly than you, so our team deserves to win. All you Methodists and RCs and other sob sister churches can take a hike. Just get on down the road, you hear?!”
25These people have done what you’d almost think would be impossible, it’s so blasted ironic: They’ve made the *Bible itself* an object of idolatry!
Sports, now, they did *that* a long time ago. This is more recent – and is absolutely nothing more than an end-run (‘scuse the unintentional pun) around the no-prayer-in-schools rules. Since it’s all <> student-led and student-made and student-inspired and all, y’know. *schnort* They fool me just about as much as I respect them: Not a dang bit!
26It has been years since I attended high school but the rhymes of those sweet clean cheerleaders on beautiful fall evenings ring in my ears until today…
“We’ve got spirit, we’ve got guts,
We’ve got your team by the … nose.”
Thanks for the memories!
27I’m assuming this is going to be appealed?! I thought cases like this were settled a long time ago, but the people who want to shove their (always Christian) religion in everyone else’s faces just never give up.
28So, apparently the girls have to be Christian at this school to be a cheerleader?
29Echoing remarks made my many above… I just can’t understand who would want to hold up a banner like that, advertising the belief that, if you lose the football game, it means your god doesn’t care about you.
But then I think anybody whose god cares who wins a football game has got a pretty small god.
30I got kind of sidetracked by the mum article on Jezebel. When I was a teenager in a Texas high school back in the 60’s, we had REAL flower mums, bought from a florist, with one flower and multiple ribbons, no beads or toys, with our name and our boyfriend’s name spelled out in glitter on the ribbons. Ah, memories. Some of the really popular girls got double or even triple mums. My boyfriend (whom I later married and then divorced, not for mum reasons) was a cheapskate, and I only got one flower if that.
31And I can recall the really good old days when the Dallas school district gave students credit for taking a religion course taught by the denomination of their choice thus aknowledging religious differences and calming the downtrodden holy mollies at the same time. Slick.
32Back in my day (which I’m not going to specify) the banners through which teams ran contained a (usually pretty bad) version of the school’s mascot (a Bulldog, in our case. Purple, because at night on a football field, you use the darker of your two colors. Yellow…er…gold…didn’t show up well) and an encouraging phrase. “GO BULLDOGS” or “BEAT ‘EM BULLDOGS” or “GO McHI!” or some such. No Bible verses. Mixing football and Sunday School was considered bad by the preachers. Irreligious. You could ask God to keep your boyfriend safe when he enlisted, and you could (secretly) pray for some help on your SATs or your Civics test, but asking God to win a football game? No. Not done.
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