Dear Editor,

I am a parent of students at Maplesville High School. Our school is being targeted for displaying a “God Bless America” banner on our school’s website as well as proudly displaying a plaque in the school office that also reads “God Bless America.”

As mentioned in a letter to the Board of Education from Freedom From Religion Foundation, MHS has been asked to remove the picture from the office as well as the banner on the website.

Thankfully, both are still being displayed. I would like everyone to know that myself as well as many others object to the banner being removed from the website and the picture from the office. Furthermore, I support the school endorsing their belief in God.

I am proud to send my children to school where I know they are being taught by Bible believing, God fearing, born again Christians. I commend our administration for fighting this. I support them in continuing to fight this.

Residents of Chilton County, it will be a sad day if we allow this group to continue this. I would like to encourage everyone to take a stand for God. Take a stand for what you believe in. Let our students know we support God being in our schools. God is there each and every day regardless if a banner is scrolling across our website or a picture is being displayed in the front office. God is walking in those doors every morning alongside all our faculty, students, and community who have chosen him to lead their lives. He is marked as “here” each and every school day. Removing “God Bless America” will not change that.

But we cannot let a small group of people remove this from our school. I think I speak for the majority of the Maplesville community in saying we are ready to fight this fight. One on my favorite verses in the Bible is 2 Timothy 4:7: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

Let me say we are prepared to fight this until we reach the end of the race. And once that end is reached, we will hold our heads high and know that regardless we will have our faith in God and trust and know that he is waiting on us at the finish line.

And once there, we will hear, “Well done my good and faithful and servant.”

Jeannie Smith, Maplesville