This is my first time doing one of these so I apologize if the format isn't great.
I am 17 and a junior in high school, and I go to a public high school in North Carolina. Today my school had this seminar/lecture/talk about drunk driving because prom is coming up and they wanted to try and prevent something serious happening. I believe the talk itself was really important and necessary, and I really do say everything with as much sensitivity as I can because this can be a really serious and traumatic topic for people.
While waiting for the talk to start, they were playing Christian music. When opening the entire thing, they started with a prayer. Then later, one of the speakers was a youth minister. He came up to speak, and he was talking about how we all get our value from "being made in the image of God". And at the end of the talk, they closed in prayer again.
I was really upset by this based on the fact that it was clearly an establishment of a religion, and super illegal! All juniors and seniors did not get a choice in going to this talk, and they did all of that. Which is crazy because we learn in the classes that we take there about a bunch of different legal stuff. Including the establishment clause and the first amendment!!!
I was complaining about this to my friends, and this one friend(18F who i will call Holly) seemed really upset by this. She brought up the kids that died that the different speakers brought up to talk about throughout the lecture, and she painted it like I was a bad person for being upset? I was really confused, and I tried to explain myself by saying "I am not trying to say anything about that. Obviously what happened was a tragedy. I am just saying what they did was against the law." but she wasnt really receptive. Our other friend who was nearby reacted the same way. But when I asked my other friends, they agreed the school shouldn't have brought religion into it.
I ended up reaching out to the friends and apologizing if I seemed insensitive or I said something insensitive, and it wasn't my intention. I explained I valued the lecture itself, I just was upset on why the school brought religion into it because it's illegal for public schools to do so. They said it's fine, but they still seem really weirded out that I am complaining. And when I asked a family member about it, it was difficult because my family is Christian. But I think that Christian or not, it's perfectly reasonable to be upset about this! I have a Christian friend who was upset about it too.
I keep playing this all over in my head, and I honestly feel crazy. I cannot tell if me questioning this all is making me a bad person, cause the whole point of the talk was to talk about students that had died from drinking and driving. So, AITAH? Should I just shut up about it because it's "just how the south is"?