Morehouse Parish School Board - Bastrop High School Prayer Controversy

Bastrop High School Prayer Controversy

In 2011, graduating senior Damon Fowler objected to prayer at the Bastrop High School graduation exercises, claiming a looming violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The ACLU of Louisiana asked the school not to include a prayer in the May 20 graduation. At the Thursday night rehearsal for the graduation, senior Sarah Barlow included a prayer that explicitly mentioned Jesus, and during the graduation, student Laci Rae Mattice led people in the Lord's Prayer before a moment of silence. The school says that Mattice was told not to include a prayer. Fowler stated that after his objections became public he was ostracized by other students. Fowler would eventually be awarded the Humanist Pioneer Award from the American Humanist Association for his advocacy and bravery.

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