This small city's namesake military base was decommissioned after World War II, but over the years Fort Oglethorpe, population 7,000, has retained its utilitarian, base-town ambience.
Public life here unfolds on two busy four-lane thoroughfares clogged with used-car lots, fast-food joints and pawnshops. All that's missing are the troops.
What Fort Oglethorpe does not lack is churches -- enough churches, in an array of Protestant flavors, to deliver salvation to brigades of sinners. The local paper lists 66 Baptist establishments alone crammed into Catoosa County, the smallest county in Georgia.
To drive through downtown Fort Oglethorpe is to feel overwhelmed by marquees barking out in blocky, black letters messages both sacred and secular:
"AMERICA WHERE IS GOD"
"5 BURGERS FOR 5.95"
"TRUTH IS NOT SOMETHING TRUTH IS SOMEONE"
So it didn't feel like wires were being crossed when, back around 2003, the cheerleaders at Lakeview Fort Oglethorpe High School began painting Bible verses on the big banners that their football team, the Warriors, would crash through under the Friday-night lights of autumn.
The verses were picked for their gridiron-friendly themes of pluck and pep: from I Corinthians ("Be men of courage; be strong"); from Ezra ("We will support you, so take courage and do it"); from Proverbs ("Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed").
There are a handful of non-Christian kids at LFO High, but for years, no one pointed out any church-state separation issues. Until this season.
On Sept. 23, Donna Jackson, the mother of an LFO High student, called the Catoosa County school superintendent about the signs. Jackson had recently taken a law course at Liberty University, the evangelical school founded by the late Jerry Falwell.
In a statement, Jackson said she wanted the school to be "protected from potential lawsuits" and wanted to head off "community division."
Supt. Denia Reese said Jackson told her the practice was breaking the law "and it needed to be stopped."
A few days later, the school district determined that the signs violated the 1st Amendment.
Reese said she regretted the move -- "I rely on reading the Bible daily," she said -- but the law was the law.
The Anti-Defamation League and other outside observers cheered. "What troubles us so much is when a school essentially says at a football game, 'If you're sitting in the stands and you're not Christian, too bad,' " said ADL Southeast Regional Director Bill Nigut.
