Football Game Prayer Violates Separation, AU Tells High Court.

Public school football games are no place for coercive worship, Americans United told the U.S. Supreme Court last month.

Americans United and allied groups filed a "friend of the court" brief in Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, a Texas case dealing with school-sanctioned, student-led pre-game prayers broadcast over a high school's public address system.

The Santa Fe controversy began four years ago when two anonymous families, one Catholic and one Mormon, filed a suit in federal court arguing that prayers before football games violate the First Amendment's separation of church and state.

AU's brief tells the justices that there is an important constitutional difference between private religious expression and prayers sponsored by the government. When public school officials turn over the school's microphone to broadcast a prayer to those in attendance for an official school event, the brief argues, the line is crossed from private expression to state sponsorship.

Groups joining Americans United on the brief include: the American Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the Council on Religious Freedom, Hadassah, the Interfaith Alliance, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, National PEARL, People For the American Way Foundation, Soka Gakkai International-USA and the Unitarian Universalist Association.