Supreme Court rules for coach whose prayers on football field raised questions about church-state se

Let Muslims pray, too.

Just because you offer the opportunity to pray, doesn't make the prayer itself coercive just because of the power dynamic between the coach and the students.

 

Feel free to start your business meetings with a prayer. That is more appropriate than praying in school because schools are government run. However, no one starts or ends a meeting with a prayer cuz that’s Ridiculous.

Pray before you get to work/school like the rest of us. I pray that the day will go fast without 11 TEAMS calls killing my motivation to live.

 

Great, now do LGBTQ+ issues, because according to you, DeSantis's handling of that in public schools has been fascist, but this is protective of individual rights.

Whatever helps you sleep at night, I guess. You are the very thing you claim to hate.

 

So if some object to your attempts to ram your beliefs down everyone else's throat that is equated with somehow restricting your ability to practice your religion? smdh. Practice your faith all you want, leave others who believe otherwise out of it.

 

You could make the same argument for dating your employee. It was optional. Just because there is power doesn’t mean it’s coercion.

 

That is not the scenario I laid out about a Muslim coach. Nice try.

The act can easily be coercive. Given the power difference--formal as it is--the potential for coercion & formal or informal punishment for non-participation in religious prayer is what makes it such a problem.

 

Maybe teachers & coaches should be able to sleep with their 18 yo students (13 in Kentucky)? After all, they're adults and have legal agency and as such, a formal power difference *doesn't mean it's coercive*

 

From the people who thought kneeling at a secular moment to recognize a secular issue by Kaepernick was too edgy I bring you the “hold my beer club”.

 

The school district offered a place for him to pray as an accommodation. He said it was too far from his players. That tells me he was engaging in not a private act, but an act to influence students in his capacity as the coach.

Personally, I have no issue with students, other faculty, etc now suing the school district when these events happen and claim coercion and harm. Let the chips fall where they may.

 

FTR, in addition to the obvious positional power a coach has over the team, in this case the prayers had been going on for many years. It became an issue once it was no longer a person doing his own thing and became a group effort led by that singular person at the most conspicuous location and time possible, and also the new development that it be verbal, not silent.

When the school asked him to rein it back in, he insisted on it still being the 50 yard-line, immediately after the game. Instead of his players, other adults and players from the OTHER team now comprised the Circle of Trust. IOW, he did the exact same thing he’d been doing inappropriately for years, but now added a weak sauce disclaimer to the children that they had no obligation to continue the practice with him.

If your 15 year-old felt pressured by that, I can’t say I blame them. Randos from the crowd and the other team support your coach’s most valued activity, but not you. Man, what a slap in the face to Coach Sincere.

And there is no need for it to be “direct” to be coercive. That is pretty much the entire idea of coercion. Direct coercion is simple force.

 

It's amusing how you deflected back to LGBTQ bigotry after I called you out for being wrong about the record. You always fall back on appeals to hypocrisy when somebody exposes holes in your argument. If you want to talk about LGBTQ issues, create a thread for it or dig up an old one. Don't try to derail this thread with your hatred of gay people.

 

I haven't read the Opinion yet, but based upon the oral arguments, I remember thinking the Court was going to throw out the prior framework and base the analysis on whether there was actual coercion. I could be wrong but didn't think that was the test before. it also seems like from the syllabus or something I read that the Court may have ruled that the coach wasn't really acting in his role as coach at that exact moment. I'm not sure how that works. Is a school teacher off duty during their lunch break or planning hour? Would the result had been the same if a Scientologist or Muslim or Satanic teacher was performing a ritual or saying prayers during that time of the day around their students? Or if an atheist coach went out to midfield to pay hommage to the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Another issue as I recall was whether the Court was willing to consider the past behavior of the coach or only the limited timeframe after he had toned down what he was doing.

Will be an interesting read. At first blush, though, I'm surprised people are really comparing a student choosing to pray and a public employee - whose jobs it is to lead kids - doing it.

 

Sadly, it's not surprising at all.

 

I have no hatred of gay people. I’m far from the best Christian myself.

You hate Christians with traditional values, and you’ve made absolutely clear that you want to shut them up.

I appeal to hypocrisy because it’s free real estate with you. You, and many on this board, can’t adhere to a consistent standard to save your life. So yes, normally when you think you got me, you’ve set a standard that strongly undermines another position you have. Of course I’m going to point that out. Why wouldn’t I?

 

Gator_lawyer on LGBTQ+ issues in public schools: Trying to silence them about their relationships and homosexual relationships even when they’re instruction directed towards 1st graders is fascism.

Gator_lawyer on Christian prayer in public schools: Well, you have to sacrifice some rights when you become a government employee.

 

They are right. All the time. They are intolerant because their soap box tells them they can be. We should all learn this.

Its a losing battle you are fighting with a narrow minded group that thinks their minds are open and broad.

Lost. Cause.

They are closed minded and intolerant while claiming to be neither. It absolutely infuriates them when called on it because they think they have a corner on what is right.

 

I don't like bigots. If that's what "Christians with traditional values" are, you're right about me not liking them.

You appeal to hypocrisy because you can't hold your own in the discussion and need to fall back on logical fallacies. It's plain as day in the thread. You made an incorrect claim to try and support your weak justification for disregarding the statements of the players, you got called on it, and instead of responding to that or owning your wrongness, you jumped to logical fallacies and attacks on gay people.

Feel free to create a thread. I'm happy to have the nuanced discussion of the LGBTQ issues there. You're not going to derail this thread by launching into attacks on gay people.

 

Do you fight to allow gays to marry in your church?

Would you be cool with a Muslim coach forcing your child into Muslim prayer?

 

"HOW DARE THEY BE INTOLERANT OF THE INTOLERANT!"