By Brandon Moseley
Alabama Political Reporter
Alabama Attorney General candidate Sam McLure called for solidarity with Lee County Board of Education officials and students after they were targeted by the Freedom from Religion Foundation.
The Lee County Board of Education banned their traditional public prayer before Football games after receiving a complaint from the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
“For decades, radical activist atheists have been running-a-muck … bringing destruction on the very foundations of our liberty,” McLure said. “First, they took prayer out of the school day, then they advocated for the right to kill the unborn. Now, the lines are being drawn again in Lee County. They are coming after our youth once again by telling them they are no longer allowed to engage in student-led prayer before a football game.”
“As attorney general, Lord willing, I will speak out against such bullying in the name of religious intolerance,” McLure said. “As Ben Carson stated, we must ‘resist this war on God, freedom of religion and freedom of speech.’ We must protect our students right to practice their religious freedoms. In the great state of Alabama, we value our students’ right to pray. We need to stand with the good people of Alabama in solidarity and fight the tyranny that intends to drive a wedge between us and our faith in God.
“The people of Alabama need to know they have an Attorney General who will stand with them in opposition to overwhelming tyranny which seeks to snuff out the light of Christianity everywhere it shines.”
“These school officials, the good people of Alabama, need to be encouraged by the support of the attorney general,” McLure said. “If the people of Alabama will hire me for this job, Lord wiling, I will do everything in my power to protect the rights of the people of Alabama to boldly shine the light of Christ into the darkness.”
For centuries, American public school children were led in prayers by their teachers at the start of each school day and the Bible was a key part of the curriculum. That changed in the 1960s by rulings from the Supreme Court of the United States. A string of Court rulings including: Engel v. Vitale which ruled that an official school prayer was unconstitutional; Abington School District v. Schempp which ruled that Bible readings and other school-sponsored religious activities were prohibited; Lemon v. Kurtzman which set severe limits on entanglements between government and religion; Lee v. Weisman which outlawed graduation prayers; and Santa Fe Independent School Dist. v. Doe which outlawed prayers over the public address system prior to high school sporting events have forced religious instruction out of the schools.
Following a complaint by the Wisconsin based Freedom From Religion Foundation, the Lee County School Board issued an order banning any and all prayers at school functions. This impacted the tradition of a student led prayer at sporting events across Lee County.
On Friday the students at Smiths Station, Alabama, high school and their supporters defied the ban, reciting the Lord’s Prayer at a football game.
Randy Brinson, the president of the Alabama Christian Coalition, told The Alabama Political Reporter that his group supports the students at the high school and other student bodies who resist this efforts to prevent students from exercising their First Amendment rights.
McLure is running for the Republican nomination for state Attorney General. Chess Bedsole, Alice Martin, and current state Attorney General Steve Marshall are also pursuing the GOP nomination in the June 5 Republican Primaries.
