Post-game prayer by coach gets blessing

The Supreme Court has sided with a former assistant football coach from Washington, ruling that his post-game practice of kneeling midfield and praying is speech protected by the First Amendment.

“The Constitution and the best of our traditions counsel mutual respect and tolerance, not censorship and suppression, for religious and nonreligious views alike,” Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the 6-3 majority.

The case centers around Joseph Kennedy, once an employee at the Bremerton School District, a public high school, who had a habit of audibly praying, at the 50-yard line, after each football game. Many parents, spectators and a sizable portion of the football team would join him in the practice. After leading the post-game prayer for seven years, in September of 2015, Kennedy was told by the district superintendent he was in violation of federal law regarding separation of church and state and ordered to stop.

Kennedy complied at first, but after council from a conservative legal group he resumed his activities and was subsequently placed on leave by the district for failing to follow their policies.

The district’s superintendent said if the school allowed Kennedy to continue his activities they would be endorsing his religious practice.

In Monday’s court decision, Gorsuch said not allowing the coach to pray would be the same as forbidding all religious expression in schools.

“In the name of protecting religious liberty, the District would have us suppress it. Rather than respect the First Amendment’s double protection for religious expression, it would have us preference secular activity. Not only could schools fire teachers for praying quietly over their lunch, for wearing a yarmulke to school, or for offering a midday prayer during a break before practice. Under the District’s rule, a school would be required to do so,” he wrote.

The 6-3 decision was issued along party lines, with the court’s liberal minority issuing their dissent.

“This case is about whether a public school must permit a school official to kneel, bow his head, and say a prayer at the center of a school event. The Constitution does not authorize, let alone require, public schools to embrace this conduct,” Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for the court’s three liberal justices.

“Today’s decision is particularly misguided because it elevates the religious rights of a school official, who voluntarily accepted public employment and the limits that public employment entails over those of his students, who are required to attend school and who this Court has long recognized are particularly vulnerable and deserving of protection,” she wrote.