Texas cheerleaders – gimme a V for victory

The Texas Supreme Court Friday has decided unanimously in favor of the Kountze cheerleaders in the years-long free speech and religious liberty case.

In 2012 the Kountze ISD cheerleaders were prevented by their school district from putting Bible verses on “breakaway” banners used at football games. A district judge ruled in their favor, but an appeals court in Beaumontruled in 2014 that because the school district was voluntarily allowing the verses, the case no longer had significance and was moot.

While he’s pleased with last week’s ruling by the Texas Supreme Court, Liberty Institute attorney Hiram Sasser says “that’s not good enough.”

“We’re entitled to an order that we had at the district court enforcing the rights of the cheerleaders,” he tells OneNewsNow.

Sasser says the case will now return to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth District in Beaumont. “And they’ll have to make a decision about whether or not to go back to the district court,” he adds. “Or they can simply end it by just affirming the district court’s opinion that the cheerleaders can have their religious banners.”

The case came about when the Freedom From Religion Foundation found out about the religious banners and filed a complaint with the district, seeking to have the banners banned. Several Texas government officials have voiced their support for the cheerleaders.

See Liberty Institute’s “Kountze Cheerleaders” page

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