Supreme Court to Hear Case of Christian Football Coach Fired for Praying in Public After Game

[Husky_Khan]

Apparently, the incident occurred six years ago at Bremerton School District, located in Washington State. He was fired from the Seattle area High School for the heinous crime of:

The Supreme Court announced Friday it will hear oral arguments in the case Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, in which former Seattle-area football coach, Joe Kennedy, is seeking to reverse a lower court decision that allowed the school district to fire him because fans and students could see him take a knee in silent prayer at the 50-yard line after football games.

In 2016, Kennedy sued the school district after being suspended in 2015 for his practice of praying on the football field after games, accusing officials of violating his religious freedom, and has been fighting the legal battle ever since.

Supreme Court to hear case of Christian football coach fired for post-game prayers on field

The U.S. Supreme Court announced on Friday it will hear the case of Seattle-area high school football coach Joe Kennedy who was fired by the Bremerton School District for regularly praying at midfield after games.

notthebee.com

 

[Captain X]

This should not have had to go all the way to the Supreme Court. While I don't think coaches or teachers should lead prayers at school, someone praying silently to themselves should be fine and fits under the First Amendment. But he's from Seattle, and apparently they have the same view toward Christianity that France does.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

Why the heck shouldn't ANY member of a team NOT be able to exercise their right to freedom of religion?

 

[Abhorsen]

Why the heck shouldn't ANY member of a team NOT be able to exercise their right to freedom of religion?

The argument would be that the students 100% could, but the coach shouldn't, as he is state employee. Now do I agree with this argument? Not really, but there's a difference between a coach doing it (especially in a way that is very public, it starts making people question if this is state speech), and a student doing it.

Basically, state employees lose some freedom of speech when acting as employees. For example, a science teacher can be fired for teaching students the earth is flat during school. Outside of school with non-students, there's freedom of speech concerns, but inside school, teacher's speech is really government sanctioned speech (it's not really their speech, but government speech that they are saying).

For a similar reason, teachers can be fired for teaching religion during school hours (and in fact cannot be allowed to do so), because a) the school gets to approve what is taught, and b) the school cannot teach religion because that would be establishing a religion violating the 1st amendment.

So the question becomes was the coach acting on the states behalf/could be perceived to have been doing so? That leads to problems. But the coach did avoid most of the problems, like leading the kids in prayer (clearly an establishment problem).

 

[Captain X]

He didn't lead anyone in prayer, though, nor was he teaching anyone religion, he was simply praying to himself.

 

[Jeff Thomas]

Except he didn't pray silently at least some of the time. I also live in the Seattle area and I've seen and heard a lot about this case. He was not doing this privately, it was very public. KING 5 news has video. I may be a bit sensative because I spent fifteen years in a cult trying to convert people, people can do what they want privately, or even in appropriate public venues. Your employer, in this case the school district, is not one of those places.

 

[Captain X]

Did he lead anyone else in prayer?

 

[Jeff Thomas]

Yes. He was in the middle of the football field surrounded by players (from both teams) and various other people. I have trouble posting links here, go to King5.com and scroll down.

 

[LordsFire]

So the question becomes was the coach acting on the states behalf/could be perceived to have been doing so? That leads to problems. But the coach did avoid most of the problems, like leading the kids in prayer (clearly an establishment problem).

If I believed for a second that the same thing would happen to a Muslim praying while on the clock, I might give some credence to this being a matter of not establishing a religion.

As it is, given the constant efforts by militant atheists to try to suppress Christianity through the establishment clause, I don't buy that for a second it's a good faith argument about it that resulted in him being fired.

 

[Abhorsen]

If I believed for a second that the same thing would happen to a Muslim praying while on the clock, I might give some credence to this being a matter of not establishing a religion.

As it is, given the constant efforts by militant atheists to try to suppress Christianity through the establishment clause, I don't buy that for a second it's a good faith argument about it that resulted in him being fired.

A Muslim (or anyone else) praying privately (which shouldn't be on the clock, but probably is, just like going to the bathroom isn't but everyone logs it anyway), isn't the same kind of issue as anyone praying publicly during school stuff/leading a prayer.

It's the Muslim just cheating on their hours (which lets be honest, happens all the time in public schools. At least they aren't watching porn). This doesn't impact the establishment clause unless either it's the schools policy to pay them while doing this specifically. And if the school pays people during generic breaks because stupid union contract, then Muslims praying during their break is totally fine. And given school is full of breaks, I don't imagine this to be that difficult.

 

[Bear Ribs]

The vid, for them as doesn't want to have to sift through that immense news site:

 

[The Whispering Monk]

No one is being forced to pray. Nuff said.

 

[Abhorsen]

The vid, for them as doesn't want to have to sift through that immense news site:

Oh, yeah, so that's more of a problem. It's public, and it involves the students. Ow, that could definitely be violating establishment clause.

No one is being forced to pray. Nuff said.

Nope. That's not enough because it's among kids. If it was adults, sure. But with kids, it's an iffy issue about if the coach's actions put pressure on them, etc. This could go either way.



Things on his side:
It's after the game, and thus might be considered no longer to be part of school sponsored time.

It's high schoolers. This would be worse the lower the age of the kids he does this with, as they are more and more impressionable.

Supreme Court makeup

Things against him:
He engages others with this (group prayer), which might pressure people (the captive audience he mentions). If he did it by himself, he'd be safer. It seems that he agreed with that though, so his agreement with that sorta crushes this being an issue, but then the school board disagrees that he agreed with that. Honestly, I'd like to know the exact question SCOTUS is going to look at.

 

[King Arts]

Yeah that sucks the guy did nothing wrong.

 

[LordSunhawk]

Note that the atheists passion for interpreting the First Amendment's Establishment Clause as 'freedom from religion' is based on a single phrase in a single sentence in a single letter ripped completely out of context and utterly ignoring what the words in said sentence actually meant in the late 18th century. A letter, in fact, written by somebody who wasn't actually involved in writing the First Amendment and who was commenting on something completely different.