Federal judge rules against Christian school in pre-game prayer lawsuit

A federal judge has ruled that the Florida High School Athletic Association did not discriminate against two private Christian high schools by barring them from holding a prayer over the loudspeaker before a 2015 state championship football game.

In a 38-page ruling last Thursday, U.S. District Judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell ruled against Cambridge Christian School of Tampa. She claimed that the association did not violate the First Amendment when it refused to allow prayer over a public-address system before the 2015 championship game against the University Christian School of Jacksonville at Orlando Camping World Stadium.

She reasoned that FHSAA is a “state actor” and “a non-profit organization that governs high school athletics in Florida.”

“The issue before the court is whether the First Amendment required the FHSAA to grant the teams unrestricted access to the P.A. system to deliver the prayer over the loudspeaker during the pregame,” she wrote.

“Thus, the questions to be answered are whether the inability to pray over the loudspeaker during the pregame of the state championship final football game violated CCS’s (Cambridge Christian’s) First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and free exercise of religion. …[T]he court concludes that the First Amendment does not apply because the speech at issue is government speech, but even if some portion of the speech is considered private speech, the court finds no constitutional violation occurred.”… (Excerpt from the Christian Post)