In the case of the praying football coach, both sides invoke religious freedom

[mahatmakanejeeves]

CASE PREVIEW

In the case of the praying football coach, both sides invoke religious freedom

By Amy Howe
on Apr 24, 2022 at 6:27 pm


Joseph Kennedy, a former football coach at Bremerton High School in Washington state. (First Liberty Institute)

Joseph Kennedy had never coached football when Bremerton High School, a public school near Seattle, Washington, hired him in 2008. He was too small to play in high school, and his football experience was limited to playing for two years while he was in Hawaii serving in the Marines. ... Kennedy describes the school district’s decision to hire him to coach the school’s junior varsity team and to serve as an assistant for the varsity team as a “fluke”: His wife worked for the school district, and the athletic director thought he might be a good fit because of his military background. Fourteen years later, the man who was hired as a fluke will be at the Supreme Court, contesting the school district’s decision not to renew his contract because of his post-game prayers at the 50-yard line.

Kennedy is not just trying to get his old job back. He’s also hoping to win a constitutional clash at the intersection of three First Amendment rights: the right to worship, the right to free speech, and the right of students to be free from religion imposed by school officials.

Like many cases involving school prayer, Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, which will be argued on Monday, is hotly contested. Kelly Shackelford, the president and CEO of First Liberty Institute, which is representing Kennedy, says a victory for Kennedy would be a victory “for everybody” that would merely reaffirm the rights to freedom of religion and free speech. By contrast, Rachel Laser, the president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which represents the school district, warns that a ruling for Kennedy would be “a radical departure from decades of well-established law protecting students’ religious freedom.”

But in this case, Kennedy and the school district disagree not only about the legal issues and their implications, but also about many of the facts, including exactly why Kennedy lost his job. Kennedy says he was fired for briefly and privately praying at midfield; Laser and the school district counter that he was suspended for “refusing to stop holding public prayers at the 50-yard line,” which created both pressure for students to join him and “genuine safety concerns for students on the fields because of the spectacle that ensued from his media outreach on praying.”

{snip}

This article was originally published at Howe on the Court.

{snip}

Recommended Citation: Amy Howe, In the case of the praying football coach, both sides invoke religious freedom, SCOTUSblog (Apr. 24, 2022, 6:27 PM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/04/in-the-case-of-the-praying-football-coach-both-sides-invoke-religious-freedom/

[exboyfil]

1. Nothing seems quiet and private

by tromping to the 50 yard line to pray.

[walkingman]

14. IMO, there has never been anything quiet or private about christianity. Just the

opposite. Every Christian I have ever met always wants to tell me about it whether I want to hear it or not.

If they didn't tell me, how would I know they were Christian?? Maybe a sticker on their car? or some chachkies in their home?

I was walking in my neighborhood and a lady stopped her car to tell me about a "prayer throw" she and her friends were making. I asked what that meant....they pray for people while they are making it....I asked "does that really work?" Of course....she has never spoken to me since....What's up with that?

[Ocelot II]

2. Even apart from the obvious First Amendment issues, praying for a sport victory

has always struck me as an obnoxiously superficial waste of God's time, maybe even borderline blasphemous - if you believe in God - and even if you don't, it's still obnoxious and superficial.

[samnsara]

3. but only one side abides by the rules of the school

..and there are plenty of other christian based private schools that coach can go pray at.

[Turbineguy]

4. Praying to God?

It's high school football.

Pray that Putin doesn't cause a nuclear war.

[Gore1FL]

5. As long as he didn't lead others, I don't see the issue.

It's a far cry from praying in a closet and shutting the door behind him, however.

[targetpractice]

9. Pete Williams just said on MSNBC...

A crowd joined him "spontaneously", and the coach called a State Legislator to participate in the gathering. Pete Williams said it was a "spectacle."

[Grins]

15. He was told NOT to do it!

By his superiors on the school board.
He did it anyway.
Insubordination is a firing offense in EVERY company and government office.
The religious “Freedumb!” defense is a diversion.

[cbabe]

6. Muslim prayer mats on the field. Inshallah.

[Tomconroy]

7. Actually an interesting case: When does the undeniable

right to practice one's religion amount to an attempt to establish a state religion.
The case will be very fact driven so if the facts aren't clear it should be remanded.
It's not obvious what he was praying for. It wasn't victory since the prayer occurred after the game.
9 judges from the 9th Circuit dissented in favor of the coach's claim? If that's true he will certainly win before this supreme court.
Good article. Scotusblog. I should have known.

[sop]

8. Could this ruling open the door to sacrificing goats on the 50-yard line?

(New York Times) "The Supreme Court ruled that Hialeah's ban on ritual animal sacrifice violated the religious freedom of the followers of an Afro-Cuban religion in which the sacrifice of animals plays a central role...All nine Justices agreed that the prohibition, enacted in 1987 by the City of Hialeah, violated the First Amendment's guarantee of the free exercise of religion."

[DBoon]

12. I'd love to see prayers to Odin or Zeus or Isis on the 50th yard line

If you allow one ancient superstition in, why not have them all?

[Girard442]

10. Hey, if individual religious freedom overrides every other consideration...

...then those Satan-worshipping coaches are about to have their day.

[keithbvadu2]

11. Many of our right wing brethren want to put public prayer and the Bible back in the schools.

Many of our right wing brethren want to put public prayer and the Bible back in the schools.

They have no qualms about using the gov't to foist their own religious beliefs on the children in public schools without letting the parents decide how they want their children raised.

[sop]

13. The parents who approve of christian prayers in public schools are the same ones who support

banning CRT, "don't say gay" legislation and eliminating certain textbooks. They believe parents should decide what their children are exposed to in the schools...so long as they approve of it.

[iscooterliberally]

16. I guess he just likes to wash the outside of the cup. n/t

[Karadeniz]

17. I'm assuming this is being done by Christians and I suppose that despite religious freedom being

invoked, questioning about religious belief won't happen. To a truly spiritual person, following spiritual beliefs is more important than seeking legal support. Jesus makes it crystal clear that prayer is a personal affair conducted in private. So why would a sincere Christian go to the courts to legally defy Jesus's instructions? Makes no sense. The courts have already given Christians time for silent prayer, in accordance with Jesus's mandate. When the courts have already supported Christian doctrine, why would a Christian want that verdict overturned.

[SCantiGOP]

18. Noted Woke activist and suspected antifa advocate:

“Erecting a wall between church and State is the only way to guarantee a free society.”
—— Thomas Jefferson

[mahatmakanejeeves]

19. Ummmmmmm, close, but...

A lot of quotes attributed to Jefferson aren't things he said. This one is a lot closer than most, but let's go to the source to see what he really did say.

Home

Thomas Jefferson and Religious Freedom

An Article Courtesy Of The Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia. Click For More.

Thomas Jefferson has been closely associated with religious freedom for more than two centuries. In the first Supreme Court case addressing the religion clauses of the First Amendment, Reynolds v. United States, the Court unanimously agreed that Jefferson’s Statute for Religious Freedom “defined” religious liberty and “the true distinction between what properly belongs to the church and what to the State.”

{snip}

ADDITIONAL QUOTES

“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”19

{snip}

- John Ragosta, 4/16/18

{snip}

19.Jefferson to Danbury Baptists, January 1, 1802, in PTJ, 36:258. Transcription available at Founders Online.

V. To the Danbury Baptist Association, 1 January 1802

V. To the Danbury Baptist Association

Gentlemen Jan. 1. 1802.

The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful & zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.

Th: Jefferson

[SCantiGOP]

20. Eh?

The phrase “separation of church and state” derives from a letter by President Jefferson in 1802 where he wrote: “Erecting the wall of separation between church and state…is absolutely essential in a free society.” The wellspring of American anti-establishment thinking, however, was Jefferson's successor, James Madison ...

[keithbvadu2]

21. What will they say/do when it is not their version of Christianity in charge?

What will they say/do when it is not their version of Christianity in charge?


http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/americas-true-history-of-religious-tolerance-61312684/?no-ist= ;

Madison also made a point that any believer of any religion should understand: that the government sanction of a religion was, in essence, a threat to religion. "Who does not see," he wrote, "that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?" Madison was writing from his memory of Baptist ministers being arrested in his native Virginia.

[keithbvadu2]

22. Make sure your prayer is a public spectacle.

Matthew 6:5-8 King James Version

5 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

8 Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.