AUSTIN — Christian cheerleaders in a small city in east Texas can continue to display Bible verses at football games, the state's highest court has decided, bringing them closer to the end of a years-long battle with their school district.

Since the lawsuit was filed six years ago, multiple courts have sided with the cheerleaders at Kountze ISD, ruling they have a First Amendment right to display religious messages at school events. On Friday, the Texas Supreme Court rejected a request by district officials to rethink those rulings, handing the cheerleaders yet another victory that could mark the end of this legal saga.

The case became a proxy battle in the war over where one person's religious rights end, and secular society begins. The cheerleaders have received widespread support from Christian groups and Texas' top Republicans, as well as legal support from the First Liberty Institute, a Plano-based nonprofit and breeding ground for conservative legal thinkers.

"As the football season kicks off across Texas, it's good to be reminded that these cheerleaders have a right to have religious speech on their run through banners — banners on which the cheerleaders painted messages they chose, with paint they paid for, on paper they purchased," Hiram Sasser, First Liberty's general counsel and an attorney for the cheerleaders, said Friday. "School districts everywhere should learn an important lesson from this failed litigation.

"Stop harassing cheerleaders and accept that they are free to have religious speech on their run through banners."

The lawsuit dates to 2012, when school officials told the cheerleaders they could not display Bible verses on their banners at school sporting events. The cheerleaders sued and the district ended up changing the policy, but school officials reserved the right to restrict what the banners said because they counted as government speech.

A judge sided with the cheerleaders in 2013. But the appeals court soon after said their lawsuit was moot because of the school district's policy change. Eventually, the case went to the Texas Supreme Court and was remanded back to the appeals court, which sided with the cheerleaders in September 2017.

The school district again appealed to the Supreme Court last year, which decided Friday not to take up the case.

Tom Brandt, Kountze ISD's attorney, said he was disappointed with the decision but held out hope his clients may have a chance to appeal.

"We're not happy with this result, but I'm not willing to say that there's no possibility we can change this," Brandt told The Dallas Morning News. "I don't think the case is completely over."

Brandt pointed to a 2011 case in which a federal appeals court ruled a cheerleader in Silsbee, Texas, couldn't refuse to root for a basketball player she said raped her because she "served as a mouthpiece through which [the school district] could disseminate speech." The Silsbee cheerleader appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear her case.

The disconnect between that federal case and this state case, Brandt said, could keep their lawsuit alive: "Those two cases are still in tension. They haven't been resolved."

The cheerleaders' attorney, however, said the Supreme Court's decision was the final word on the matter.

"After more than five years of litigation, our clients are relieved that the Texas Supreme Court has brought an end to the school district's scorched earth litigation tactics," Sasser said.

The case will now be sent back to a lower court judge, who will determine attorneys' fees.