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Marietta High School is my alma mater. Although it's been 20 years since I graduated, I still have close ties to the community and have reason to believe that little has changed since I was a student.

I'm not at all surprised MHS has a "Jesus Loves You!" bench on their campus. When I was there there were Jesus posters and stickers and flyers all over the place. The student body at MHS was/is overwhelmingly Christian from degrees ranging from very religious to those who go along with all the Christian activities just to be social. When I was there, there was a lot of peer pressure to join in specifically Christian extracurricular groups such as FCA and Young Life. Young Life in particular attracted a lot of kids who were more interested in having a place to hook up before going out to get drunk. People who didn't take part or at least pretend to take part in all of this were actually teased and said to be weird. I was an agnostic bordering on atheist in high school (no more - long story) and so I was pretty much one of those outcasts. I didn't care though - in fact, I took it as a kind of badge of honor. I never really resented it because it wasn't a position the school itself took. Teachers and admins there were quite even-handed. All the pressure came from the kids themselves.

I can't help but think it's funny that some liberal is now challenging the school's status quo. That's definitely a new experience for MHS. Sounds like the school board is going to handle it in a reasonable fashion, but the God Squad contingency is not going to be happy if that bench is removed or even moved from its place at the front.