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

Using a football game to coerce people into praying seems like the exact same tactic to me, probably even worse since its not like I was going to lose my place in a pickup basketball game

 

Not even close. No one stopped the game and preached to the crowd. Game was over. Just pray, head to the locker room or go home. Whatever.

 

One can speak to ones god without saying it out loud in front of a bunch of other people. Performing it in front of other people sounds like preaching to me.

 

I see, if they had waited until then end to do the preaching, only then it would have been the same.

 

What do you think peer pressure is? There's no coercion other than possibly being shunned by a group. Such a travesty. Far worse such an action as seeing someone pray causes undue stress in some peoples minds.

 

So shut up. Got it.

 

Why should the coach be exempt?

 

You know they have places where you can pray with a bunch of people if thats your thing, its called church, and I dont go there and tell you what to do or demand special dispensations

 

I mean i think afterward is a bit different than during yeah. Game's over go home.

 

So shut up in public. Got it.

 

Yes, you don't have to do everything you can do in private or behind closed doors in public, its the very basis of society

 

Yes, shut up if you want pray to your god and not preach at others around you while you are doing it. I personally do not like having to listen to other people pray, whether it be in a church, at a football game, on the street, or around the dinner table. It's totally coercive. I tolerate it, but I do not care for it.

 

Bit of an overstatement, isn't it? You can pray at the mall, at the grocery store, in the library (quietly) on the bus, walking down the street. The airwaves are replete with prayers, as is the media. But yes, complain that asking one public school employee to tone down his public prayer circle is akin "just shut up in public."

 

this wasn't quiet prayer, he stood and shouted for everyone to join in while others knelt. He was quoted as saying that if you weren't part of the prayer group perhaps you didn't deserve to be part of the team. This was NOT quiet personal prayer, it was eulogizing and using his position of authority to encourage others to participate or be left behind.

This decision is as bad as calling the insurrection a protest, it is a vacation of an ability to identify the truth in favor of a goal to advance an idealogy. Of all the bad decisions to come down lately, this may be the worst because it is simply an abandonment of the truth

 

I was referencing the poster who said refrain from "saying it out loud".

Telling people of faith not to "say it out loud" is pretty much contrary to 1A and is pretty much a just shut up scenario

 

I'm not accusing you of being myopic. I'm accusing you of requiring a higher burden of proof from the side that you're not sympathetic to.

Almost every reasonable person on this board would be on your side and this coach's side if he simply had a post-game tradition of praying in the locker room and some players and coaches joined him in it.

But that's not what he did. He made and then grew a very public spectacle of his post-game prayer, in which he clearly "huddled up" the team made up of minors to whom he is a school-appointed authority figure, creating an environment where they either had to comply or ostracize themselves from the group and risk being singled out. That's basic game-theory styled coercion. Almost no high school kid has the self-confidence to willingly single themselves out as different from the group.

He took advantage of his authority combined with that group dynamic to peer pressure his players to hear his prayers. As a public employee on the clock, he should not be allowed to do that.

 

You realize if I said all those things about a transgendered person and used the word "tolerate" like you did people here would call me a certain term.... right?

 

Thanks for the response, but let me ask this. How is that suddenly different in the locker room? Same kids right?

 

Who said refrain from saying it out loud?

 

No, not at all. I have personally been amongst a group of gay men at a bar, behaving the way gay men sometimes do, with somewhat lavish expressions of sexuality. It's not my thing and not something I like to be around all that much. But I'm tolerant of it. I don't insult them or chastise them. And if I want to I can leave. That doesn't make me a bigot as you are trying to imply I am towards Christians.