The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Joseph Kennedy, a Seattle-area football coach.

Beginning in 2008, Kennedy began kneeling on the football field after games and partaking in a brief prayer. Over time, players from his own team and the opposing team began to join him. Eventually, the vast majority of players would participate in the post-game prayer.

This continued without any formal complain until 2015 when the school told Kennedy to stop, claiming the act violated school policy that prohibited staff from encouraging students to engage in devotional activities.

According to the New York Times:

The vote was 6 to 3, with the court’s three liberal members in dissent.

The case pitted the rights of government workers to free speech and the free exercise of their faith against the Constitution’s prohibition of government endorsement of religion and the ability of public employers to regulate speech in the workplace. The decision was in tension with decades of Supreme Court precedents that forbade pressuring students to participate in religious activities.

Over the last 60 years, the Supreme Court has rejected prayer in public schools, at least when it was officially required or part of a formal ceremony like a high school graduation. As recently as 2000, the court ruled that organized prayers led by students at high school football games violated the First Amendment’s prohibition of government establishment of religion.

“The delivery of a pregame prayer has the improper effect of coercing those present to participate in an act of religious worship,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.

Mr. Kennedy’s lawyers said those school prayer precedents were not relevant because they involved government speech. The core question in Mr. Kennedy’s case, they said, was whether government employees give up their own rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion at the workplace.

Crucial to the case is the fact that the prayers took place after the game’s conclusion and that no students were ever alleged to be punished for not partaking in the post-game prayer. In fact, only one student ever reported personally feeling that he might be at risk if he did not join in, though no action was ever taken against him.

 



Comments

  1. Democrats lose another important case, private prayer is not an establishment of religion.
    Go Trump.

    1. Mr. M – we sure need God’s Help in doing this. And He is doing that these last few days, for sure! And we need to keep praying to Him!

  2. the democrats like to use the constitution like they do with the doj, irs,fbi and any other dept. as a weapon against any one that disagrees with their evil plan. They hate America, they hate the American people, and they hate God. They have the people so confused that they don’t know the difference between a Democracy and our constitutional republic. I pledge Allegiance to the Flag of The United States of America and to the REPUBLIC for which it stands,one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Their lust for power by far surpasses any patriotic tendencies or morals

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