Metroplex Atheists
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Birdville Prayer School Prayer Event Protest

On Sunday, August 5 2001, the Birdville TX School District waived rental fees and ignored their own guidelines for facility-rental and gave a group of local churches the athletic complex for a night of prayer and proselytizing on government property. Furthermore, the local school district handed out flyers for the event to all school personnel. And, if that wasn't enough, they got several faculty members to show up at the event to give an endorsement.

Think your local Buddhist temple could've gotten such a fine deal and such endorsements? No, we didn't think so either, so we protested.

Nice place, huh? And it's all free!

Everett Cox versus the amateur proselytizers. This group hung around for quite some time.

Most folks took issue with the "Matthew 6:5-6" sign. They all insist that we're taking it out of context and that it actually means <insert explanation here>.

Problem is, every explanation of why that verse doesn't count is different! Until we can get some consensus on why that verse doesn't count, we're just gonna have to take it at face-value.

There was only one entrance for cars, so John took up a station there. There were lots more middle-fingers at this protest than previous ones. While the old NDOP protests might garner three or four, this one got close to fifty from cars showing up to the rally, even though lots of cars contained young kids.

One particularly angry pastor stopped his car to yell at John that they had opened a second gate and that people were leaving because of us. None of us saw this, because the other entrances were quite a distance from the main one. Who knows? Maybe some folks did get the message.

Randy found himself a new hat. He dragged out the electric megaphone, because the cop from the NDOP protest was nowhere in sight.

The event as it was happening.

The current speaker is the principal of Birdville High, who assured the crowd that her goal was to get in educational programs that modeled their values.
Hopefully it doesn't include any stuff from the Old Testament.

Another district policy is that the events cannot be used for profit. Apparently somebody forgot to tell the band.

Brian meets up with a proselytizer. This one asked if we were afraid of being near so much prayer
Apparently they think that "prayer waves" are harmful to atheists

It was a hot summer day when we chose to protest the BISD endorsement of religion. I had positioned myself so that every entering vehicle could not help but see me. With a friendly grin and a wave peppered with the occasional "Howdy!" I greeted all who came to the event. The responses were varied from a smile and a thumbs up to odd finger gestures assuring me that I am number one, and on a few occasions I would get one of each from different people in the same car.

We had been on our protest line for maybe and hour and a half and the cars were streaming in now. Apparently procrastination is next to godliness, not cleanliness. I was already into my second bottle of water that John and Shelly Hattan had thoughtfully provided when I glanced back to see if proselytizers were approaching. I noticed a portly young man of about 13-14 making an angry beeline to our location. This was great because thus far only a few people had come to save our souls but they gave up after a few minutes of half-heartedness. Personally I prefer the younger Christians because they aren't as belligerent as their adult counterparts. I suppose that most of them still see adults as authority figures and so they sometimes shut up and let me talk. Also they are just shocked when I answer "no, I don't believe in god."

The young man finally made it and had been joined by some of his friends along the way. With his chubby cheeks stuffed with tobacco and his fists clenched he launched into his conversion technique. "You wanna get hit?!" I was taken slightly aback, aside from an incident at the Promise Keepers rally I was unaware of any violence at one of our protests. Briefly I entertained the thought of getting into a scuffle with the lad, he reminded me of Nick Finley who had been a bully when I was in Elementary and Jr. High. But then I remembered the promise we had made to the NRH police officer that we wouldn't pick fights with the 4000 attendees so I simply retorted with "That would be a hate crime, you'll go to jail." The friends looked away from me and back to their leader with worried looks on their faces. It would seem that the plan had been to come out there and hassle us for fun, no one had mentioned violence until the rotund one had invited it. Now it was his turn to be taken aback. I could almost see the little gears in his head shaking off the dust and cobwebs as he realized that the law applied to him too, even if he didn't want it to. With a quick spit and a less forceful "I don't care." his chest became a little less puffed up and he backed down. Much to the obvious relief of his tobacco chewing friends, particularly the one who had seemingly just started chewing as he had so much in his mouth it was actually spilling out. I imagine that he was there so as to not be left out, probably the same reason that he had the tobacco in his mouth as he did look uncomfortable.

Soon enough an adult came along to save my soul and he began by arguing that my placard wasn't biblically accurate. The tobacco five chose this time to leave. After explaining that it was a paraphrase of the Matthew 6:5-6 he pointed to the part at the bottom and said he didn't know where that came from but it surely wasn't biblical. A quick glance down revealed it to be the Metroplex Atheist website and I explained it to him. He seemed happy concerning that and spoke to Everett from then on.

Later after the protest was over we decided to go inside and watch some of the proceedings. Something that wasn't mentioned in the ads for this back to school prayer rally is that it would be led by school leaders such as the superintendents. I suppose they forgot to put that part in there. After hiking to near the top of the stadium a piece of ice came whizzing by my head followed by guffaws. I turned around and it was the same tobacco five. Having my digital camera that allows immediate viewing of photos that have been taken at the ready I snapped a few pictures of the troublemakers. The more intelligent figured out what I was doing and quickly sat down so that my photos would only show them listening intently to the sermon. The others proudly mugged for the camera. I walked on down to where a policeman was standing and showed him the photos and informed him of what was going on. He came back up with me and gave the children a stern lecture and they sat quietly for the rest of the time we were there. After that the officer came over and told us he was sorry that that had happened. It turns out that this was the same officer that Randy had seen when he had been protesting outside the church in his community earlier that day. Shortly afterwards we left and agreed that it was a great protest.

Metroplex Atheists' newest best buddy, the ice-thrower-for-Jesus who threatened to hit Brian,
and who thinks that "Turn the other cheek" is a reference to chewing tobacco.

Keep up the great work, Cletus. You're a perfect example of Christian love!