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

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/26/school-prayer-kennedy-church-state/

A Michigan superintendent is pondering whether coaches should lead students in pre-game prayer. A school board member in Florida wants her district to teach students about prayer and offer religious studies. In Hawaii, the leader of a faith- and family-focused activism group sees a path to altering state policy that says public-school employees cannot initiate prayer on campus.

A month has passed since the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Washington state football coach who knelt at midfield to pray and was joined by student-athletes. The court wrote, in a 6-3 decision, that Bremerton High School assistant coach Joseph Kennedy’s prayers were protected by the Constitution’s guarantees of free speech and religious exercise, and that the district was wrong to discipline him for what the majority saw as a private act.

In response, families, teachers and activists are preparing to push religious worship into public schools nationwide — working to blur the line dividing prayer and pedagogy and promising emotional, spiritual and educational benefits for students. Some school officials are listening: In at least three states, Illinois, Alabama and Oregon, school personnel have said they are reviewing their policies on employee prayer.

“Our nation has lost its way in having lost a belief of a higher power,” said Christi Fraga, a Miami-Dade school board member who in May successfully proposed establishing an annual day of prayer in her district. “So in my community, there has been a cry for help — a cry to allow prayer in our schools.” Fraga added of the court’s ruling: “I hope it brings back our country to its foundation.”

 

Trask deserves a chance

 

At the UF football games, when I used to go to them, after the game was over, the fans were leaving the stadium and the players and coaches were hanging around and talking or heading to their locker rooms, some Christian players on both teams would gather together and have a prayer session. That's great. No one was offended. It was great for comradery among opponents who had just battled it out on the gridiron. No one who did not want to participate felt any compulsion to do so. That is so different than the coach of a team organizing a prayer session for the players on his team either before or after a game.

 

Meanwhile, this narcissist has managed to overcome his voicelessness. He just wanted to quietly pray on the sidelines, if only the heathens would allow him.




“As soon as the school district says ‘Hey, come back,’ I am there, first flight,” he said. So the school district has been flummoxed about what’s happened since. They complied by offering to reinstate him, they say, and now the football season is in full swing. But Kennedy is nowhere near the sidelines.

Instead, as the Bremerton Knights were prepping for the season in August, Kennedy was up in Alaska, meeting with former Vice President Mike Pence and evangelist Franklin Graham. On the eve of the first game, which the Knights won, Kennedy was in Milwaukee being presented with an engraved .22-caliber rifle at an American Legion convention.


The weekend of the second game, which the Knights also won, Kennedy appearedwith former President Donald Trump at the Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey. He saw Trump get a religious award from a group called the American Cornerstone Institute.

Coming up this month, Kennedy’s scheduled to give a talk as part of a lectureship series at a Christian university in Arkansas.

 

Bottomline, this coach is full of shit.

 

He’s found his on-ramp to the big grift

 

Grifters gonna grift. Grifting circuit probably pays a lot better than his teacher salary + $5000 coaching stipend too.

 

What's funny now is that I made this comment purely based on the lies in the opinion, but now, this coach has just proven that the majority brazenly lied about mootness in this case. Bottomline, they shouldn't even have decided this case because this coach wasn't fired, didn't want his job back, and moved across the country with no intention of getting his job back.

But the Republicans on the Supreme "Court" had no interest in what the law and honesty required of them.

One more reason why Democrats should pack SCOTUS. These culture warrior Republicans on the "Court" are no different from the Republican politicians who believe in nothing but power and the ends justifying the means.

 

Kind of hilarious:
The praying coach resigns. He's going to stick with the right-wing media tours.

Praying football coach finally returns to his coaching gig more than a year after he could have, coaches one game, and then quits to return to Florida. And Republican SCOTUS wonders why it is losing credibility with the populace.

 

And now those players lack his moral guidance. How will they succeed in life? Easily. Learn from his example. Learn the grievance grift.