The Iowa Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit to block the Woodbine Community School District's high school choir from singing the Lord's Prayer at a May graduation.
In documents in federal court, the ICLU said the tradition amounts to endorsement of religion, which is prohibited by the Constitution, and defies a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that bans prayer at graduations.
"The novelty here is that the prayer is to be sung," Rand Wilson, ICLU legal director, said Tuesday. "That's still unacceptable."
The lawsuit was filed in Council Bluffs on behalf of 14-year-old twins Donovan and Ruby Skarin, Woodbine sophomores and choir members, and their parents, Christine and Donald Skarin of Dunlap.
Woodbine Superintendent Terry Hazard said he wasn't sure how the district would proceed. The school board will discuss the situation, possibly at an April 11 meeting, he said.
The Lord's Prayer has been sung for several years at graduation, Hazard said. Earlier this year, the board considered ending the tradition. Several complaints from residents followed, and the board reconsidered, he said.
Hazard said the board decided to add a nonreligious song "to balance things out." He said the board thought another song would quiet critics.
Members of the Skarin family were not available to comment Tuesday.
The Skarins also will be represented by professor Sally Frank and law students at the Drake University Legal Clinic.
The ICLU said the twins felt uncomfortable "being forced to sing the Lord's Prayer."
"The prayer which they are having us sing for graduation is basically forcing us to sing praise to a God that we don't even believe in," Donovan Skarin said in an ICLU news release.
Ben Stone, ICLU executive director, said: "The government has no business forcing kids to sing such a prayer. This is about recognizing the dignity of people who don't happen to agree with the majority on a religious matter."
Wilson said a small minority of Iowa school districts continues prayers at graduations and other ceremonies. The number is decreasing, he said, because courts have held the practice is unconstitutional.
The Woodbine case is the fifth school prayer case in 20 years involving the ICLU. In all cases, the organization has won in federal district court.
In 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a landmark decision, barred prayer in a case brought against the Providence, R.I., public schools.