'BONG HITS 4 JESUS' FREE-SPEECH CASE SPLITS BUSH, CHRISTIAN BACKERS

WASHINGTON -- A Supreme Court case about the free-speech rights of
high school students, to be argued Monday, has opened a fissure
between the Bush administration and its usual allies among
conservative Christian supporters.

On the surface, Joseph Frederick's dispute with his high school
principal, Deborah Morse, in Alaska five years ago appeared to have
little, if anything, to do with religion.

As the Olympic torch was carried through the streets of Juneau on its
way to the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City and as television
cameras focused on the scene, Frederick and some friends unfurled a
14-foot-long banner with the inscription "Bong Hits 4 Jesus."

Frederick later testified that he designed the banner "to be
meaningless and funny, in order to get on television." Morse
recognized "bong hits" as a slang reference to using marijuana. She
demanded that he take the banner down. When he refused, she tore it
down and gave him a 10-day suspension.

The Bush administration entered the case on the side of the principal
and the Juneau School Board. The National School Board Association,
two school principals' groups and several anti-drug organizations also
filed briefs on the school board's side.

While it is hardly surprising to find the American Civil Liberties
Union on Frederick's side, it is the array of briefs from
organizations that litigate and speak on behalf of generally
conservative Christian groups that has made Morse vs. Frederick out of
the ordinary.

The groups include the American Center for Law and Justice, the
Christian Legal Society, the Alliance Defense Fund, the Rutherford
Institute, and Liberty Legal Institute, a non-profit law firm
"dedicated to the preservation of 1st Amendment rights and religious
freedom."

The institute, based in Plano, Texas, told the justices in its brief
that it was "gravely concerned that the religious freedom of students
in public schools will be damaged" if the court rules for the school
board.

Douglas Laycock of the University of Michigan Law School, an authority
on constitutional issues involving religion who worked on Liberty
Legal Institute's brief, said that religiously observant students
often find the atmosphere in public school to be unwelcoming and "feel
themselves a dissident and excluded minority."

He added: "The status of being a dissident unites dissidents on either
side."