Initially, once word leaked that the possibility of a school-sponsored prayer had been removed, only a few people knew about it. I heard from my friend that in her journalism class, people were talking about it, that students were calling me a jerk, an asshole. Eventually, a parent heard about the cancellation of the vote and contacted the local news. I had no idea about this until a friend of mine saw a news van at school and found that the local news was interviewing a student who was in support of having prayer at graduation. My friend put me on the phone with the news anchor, and I ended up driving to school to be interviewed.
Once the interview aired that night, everything blew up. Facebook went crazy. People were posting things such as the following: “For those who got our annual prayer taken out of my graduation, I’ll pray for you.” Another: “Harrison Hopkins, I do not know you personally, but tonight you need lots of prayer for being the one wanting to take prayer out of graduation. How can the district let one student’s feelings overpower all of the others? If this happens, I’ll be seriously disappointed with my alma mater.” Another: “There will be a prayer June 2nd. You’re not taking that away from us. Enjoy burning in hell.” Another: “I think it’s ridiculous that a prayer can’t be said at graduation because somebody doesn’t feel included. When have you ever been?” Another: “Congratulations to Laurens County School District for caving to one person’s demands. If my school would have caved to me, I would have been a straight-A student and not learned a darn thing. And now, a message to the student body with one exception: I am not a fan of senseless violence, but this kid needs to be taken out back and had his ass kicked to beat some sense into him.”
When I went to school the next day, everyone seemed to know who I was. People stared at me in the halls. Nobody actually came up to me and said anything to my face, but sometimes when I’d have my back turned, students would yell things like “Jesus loves you!” My lunch table was interesting. I sat with a rather diverse group of people. There was me, the atheist; my best friend, who was spiritual but nonreligious; a lesbian; her girlfriend, who was a rather hardcore Christian; and a bunch of other people who varied from extremely religious to not religious at all. We got into some intense arguments that day. It evolved into a shouting match. Somebody called me close-minded because I was trying to force a secular graduation ceremony. Some of the people I argued with during lunch removed me as their friend on Facebook. I heard rumors that people were planning to jump me. One day not long after that, I was driving my best friend home, and we passed two young men in camouflage on four wheelers driving the opposite way on the street. We passed them and ended up at a stop sign about a mile down the road. I looked in my rear-view mirror; they were behind us, flipping us off.
On graduation night itself, I decided that I wasn’t going to be afraid of anybody. The student body president ended up saying a prayer during his speech. I can’t remember exactly what he said, but he opened the prayer along these lines: “I’d like to thank our teachers, our principal, and our administration, but there’s one other person I’d like to thank, and that person is God. Would you please join me in prayer?” He read a prayer that ended with “in Jesus’s name we pray, amen.”
The prayer was greeted by applause and cheering from the crowd. The valedictorian mentioned the controversy in his speech. He said that while we had this division, we should still realize that we were all graduating together. He went on to say that his faith had been strengthened by the prayer fiasco and that, while he understood my opposition, he was glad that there was a prayer at his graduation. Later, a friend told me that while he was sitting in the audience, he overheard people behind him talking about wanting to find me to beat me up after the ceremony. None of that happened, perhaps because of the police that were walking through the crowd. Walking to my car after the ceremony, somebody yelled, “God loves you!”
During graduation, I wasn’t really scared because if somebody had decided to beat me up, that would have further proved my point. I suppose I was just indifferent to the people who were against me because I knew that I was right, and the threats weren’t going to impact me. If I lost any friends because of it, they obviously weren’t that good of friends anyways.
My maternal grandmother still has no idea that I’m an atheist. In fact, nobody on my mother’s side knows. Even though my grandmother came to my graduation, I was able to hide the issue well enough that she gave me Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life Journal, and The Daily Bible.
I live in South Carolina, so I was not particularly surprised that there would be some backlash, but I didn’t know that it would elevate to the extent that it did. I didn’t expect the criticism to be as negative as it was. My best friend’s girlfriend’s grandmother actually appeared on a newscast using a “majority rules” argument, saying that she was starting a petition to get the prayer officially added back to the program the following year.
Most people in this part of the country have never had anyone challenge their religious beliefs. They’ve been surrounded by Christians their entire lives. It’s a huge culture shock for them to know that somebody doesn’t believe in God. I understand where they’re coming from, but I don’t condone their intolerance. I think that anybody can and should realize that what I did was not an attack on Christianity. I was upholding the law.
Despite the negativity, I did receive some support. A close friend argued publicly in favor of removing the prayer from the ceremony so much that, at the beginning, people actually thought that she was the one who filed the complaint. A few times, when I was walking through the halls at school, I’d have people come up to me and say, “I support what you’re doing. I’m an atheist, too, and I don’t think a prayer should be read.” I even had a few people come up to me and say, “I’m a Christian, and I agree with what you’re doing. I don’t think prayer should be a part of graduation.”
Most of my support came from the internet. I started a group on Facebook called “Support the End of School-Sponsored Prayer at LDHS graduation.” It ended up attracting 160 members. Some people who found me on Facebook messaged me saying, “I graduated from LDHS years ago, and I thought the prayer didn’t belong there either, so thank you for finally standing up and saying something.”
If it wasn’t for the internet, I can’t say that I would have done what I did. I think that the internet is helping to fuel the secular movement because atheists like myself in predominantly Christian communities are able to find other people like them online, on places like Reddit and Facebook.
The internet has already connected me with the movement and its participants. Recently, I attended the Center for Inquiry’s Student Leadership Conference, where Jessica Ahlquist, Damon Fowler, and I were all on a panel discussing high school activism. We told our stories and got a standing ovation. Being surrounded by so many like-minded people, and not having to hide anything from them, made for an awesome experience. It really motivated me to keep on working.
I think that the secular movement is becoming huge. People are coming out as secular and as atheists in all areas of the country and the world. This year, there were only a few high school activists like me who were making headlines to ensure the separation of church and state. Next year, I imagine that there will be even more. I hope we can have a major impact on society.