A school superintendent's decision to bar a second-grade girl from singing "Awesome God" in an after-school talent show is developing into an important showdown over the role of religious speech in public elementary schools.

The issue arose in May 2005 when an 8-year-old student in Frenchtown, N.J., was told that the song she'd selected to perform in the show was too religious.

To some religious groups the incident illustrates unconstitutional government hostility toward people of faith.

School officials defend the action, saying they don't op-pose religious songs but that the lyrics of "Awesome God" cross the line into proselytizing and thus are not appropriate for a show performed by and for young students.

Now, a year later, lawyers for both sides are asking a federal judge in Trenton, N.J., to decide whether school officials exercised reasonable judgment as educators in banning the song, or instead violated the second-grader's free speech and religious rights. US District Judge Stanley Chesler is expected to take up the case July 3.

"This is tolerance and political correctness gone awry," says Maryann Turton, the girl's mother. "This is a much bigger picture than just our daughter in our little town. It is going on everywhere."

The case has attracted the attention of the Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based religious rights group that is representing the girl and her parents in a lawsuit against the school district. In addition, the civil rights division of the Justice Department and the New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) are filing friend-of-the-court briefs supporting the girl's right to sing "Awesome God" at the talent show.

School officials say the issue is being blown out of proportion. They say they offered to allow the girl to sing a different religious song, but the offer was turned down. Frenchtown School Superintendent Joyce Brennan says the "Awesome God" lyrics were too graphic and violent, and crossed the line into proselytism.

"The problem came with the words in the song that were not espousing what the child believed but rather indicating what other people should be believing," Ms. Brennan says.

The lyrics read in part:

There's thunder in His footsteps
And lightning in His fists
(Our God is an awesome God)
And the Lord wasn't joking
When He kicked 'em out of Eden
It wasn't for no reason
That He shed His blood
His return is very close
And so you better be believing that
Our God is an awesome God.

The US Supreme Court has not directly addressed the issue of religious speech at the elementary school level. The justices have allowed students to use public school classrooms for religious meetings after school, but they have also struck down the offering of a student-led prayer prior to high school football games in Texas.

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