Now, this strikes me as definitely not completely voluntary, nor completely legal.
Underage children are not legally responsible adults, and as such, the range of things they can do “voluntarily” is limited. Also, they were in custody of someone who has a position of authority over them, and can reward or punish their actions, so IMO there is a subtle coercive element as well.
My take: wrong, wrong, wrong. The coach, the superintendent, nearly every adult involved should be reprimanded, prolly fired.
Well, just to play devil’s advocate, the fact that only 20 of the 46 went, and 9 of those 20 were baptized shows that it was voluntary. Unless you can show that the ones who didn’t go and/or didn’t get baptized are suffering discrimination of some kind.
Don’t get me wrong; this does seem outside the bounds, but I don’t see any coercion here.
After reading the wholw article, this does not bother me as much as some other cases. Assuming it was done outside school hours, and the coach rented the bus like any other organization not-affiliated with the school would do, and he didn’t talk to the students about it during school-sponsored events, it seems at least plausibly legal. In the end it comes down to manners. Someone with a well developed sense of ettiquite would probably look at this and say “you know, doing this as a team is probably divisive, and not respectful to students who don’t want to participate and to the parents in general”.
I’m with jt on this – emphasizing his second sentence. There’s a very fine line between facilitating young people’s freedoms (of speech, of free exercise, etc.) and placing subtle coercion to conform.
One thing influencing me in adopting this view is having recently read a Web-based fiction in which the younger brother of a Congressional page caught up in a (bogus) sex scandal, who organized a voluntary student protest to show support for his big brother and his friends. A parent facilitated the student-run protest, arranging for school buses to transport the kids, insurance to cover it, etc. The protest was student-run, the parents just enabling them to accomplish their goal.
If the coach here was evangelizing his team, exerting even slight pressure on team members to get involved with religious events, etc., then it’s an Establishment Clause violation. But if it was half the team wanting to go to the “evangelist service” and 45% of them electing to be baptized, and the coach enabling it to happen, not pushing it, as the superintendent is explicit in saying, then it’s no different from the fictional protest – adults enabling voluntary student activity.
A part of growing up is deciding what you yourself stand for. It is not our job to tell high school kids what they have to stand for – whether it be pro- or anti-gay, pro- or anti-religion, etc., etc. If freedom means anything, it means something more than “freedom to agree with me.”
Since they are minors, this makes me uncomfortable. Does anyone know how many students in total went? They mention 20 players went, but were they’re other students, as well. If so, that would make me feel a little more comfortable with this, given the great influence a coach can have, but I’d still find it troubling.
On preview, I agree with FriarTed’s point concerning parental permission.
I find it creepy and might be concerned that some favouritism may result, but the baptism ritual in itself is harmless mumbo-jumbo. It’s not like the kids become Flandereses or anything.
Did you folks even read the story linked to in the OP? From the first page:
I suppose you could argue that that doesn’t mean they didn’t have their parent’s permission to go, but that brings up the question: who was legally in custody of all these kids during the trip?
Apparently every parent gave consent except the one that complained. I’m more concerned with the fact that a schoolteacher took kids somewhere their parents had no idea they were going. The fact that it was a religious event isn’t such a big deal to me.
Before everyone feels so good about those who didn’t go, how many might have been already baptized and born-again? The ones who went might have been a high proportion of the “unsaved.” I’m betting a Kentucky high school football team doesn’t have a lot of Jews, atheists or even Catholics on it.
Also, how did this come up? Did the kids spontaneously go to the coach asking to be driven to church? Doubtful. Inviting the team to his church would be over-stepping the line in my opinion, inviting them to be baptized even more so.
How did this one parent manage to be unaware while other parents actually went to the event? Was the one parent sleeping on the job and just managed not to notice the official notifications about the event that the other parents received, or was there some sort of campain of selective information along the lines of the kids whose parents would like it inviting them, and the one who knew it would be forbidden sneaking out, or something?
Oh, and this whole deal seems really dubious to me. No way did the kids come up with the idea…
I pretty much agree with those who say that this was improper. The coach has subtle (or not-so-subtle) coercive power, and I don’t think that school property should be used in promotion of religious activities. In addition to the use of the bus, I think it is safe to assume that he promoted the field trip to his team during practice, while he was teaching a class, etc.
The fact that one of the coaches “paid for gas” is a red herring. First, gas expenses do not represent the full cost of operation – if the school district wants to rent its buses to outside groups, it should have a rate that includes fuel, depreciation, insurance, etc. At the very least, the coach should have paid the IRS milegae rate. In any case, even if the rental rate was reasonable, I’d still feel uncomfortable if the school rented the bus to a group who used the bus to promote religion.
Just for grins, I wondered if the Breckenridge County School District (BCSD) had a mechanism for renting the buses out. It turns out that the school district has all their policies posted online. They’re hard to link to, but the menu for accessing them is here. Here are a few highlights:
(OK, that references political rather than religious activities, but there is at least an even chance that the two cross over here.)
God, I love the internet, and companies that put way too much information online. Anyway, it looks like the BCSD doesn’t let anyone use their buses for anything other than school activities. A good policy, in my opinion. So is going to church a school activity in the BCSD, or are they in violation of their own policies?
The thread title is misleading. It wasn’t a field trip to get baptized. It was a field trip to see the evangelist, Ronnie Hill (of NASCAR fame). Evidently, he was quite inspiring.
Sounds like they’ve discussed it in the passed, and the kid ran away to get baptized. (Or tatooed, or have sex, or whatever else parent antagonizing action it is for kids these days)
It must have already been a dividing issue between the son and parents. I mean, seriously, who sits down with a kid these days and says: “Son, I know you think you are all grown up, and ready to be a man. I know all the other kids are doing it these days. Before you make the decision, you need to make sure its in the context of a life long commitment. I know you think it’s love, but when you are a little older you’ll understand better. So please, just wait until you are atleast 18 before you have …er…get religion.”
Before everyone feels so good about those who didn’t go, how many might have been already baptized and born-again? The ones who went might have been a high proportion of the “unsaved.” I’m betting a Kentucky high school football team doesn’t have a lot of Jews, atheists or even Catholics on it.
<snip>QUOTE]
Actually, that particular area of Kentucky had a lot of immigrants from southern Germany in the nineteenth century…hence a larger proportion of Catholics than most of the state.
That said, the parents are in a tough place with this one. If their son is sincere (at least for the moment) about the born again / baptism thing, their protests will only serve as a martyr point for the evangelicals. Even if he only went along to see a NASCAR hero and got caught up in the emotion of it all, they will come off to a lot of folks as being just out to make a big deal of the whole mess.
I, personally think that the coaches were in the wrong. Most people who are religious would have a hissy fit should their kids be told that what their religion believes is not the way to go…why should they expect non-religious parents to be ok with them telling their (non-religious) kids that what the parents believe is wrong?
Poly. I’m surprised at you. There’s a big difference between parents - with no authority over anyone except their own kids - facilitating an activity initiated by the kids themselves, and someone from the school with authority over the kids doing so.
The thing is, the kids don’t necessarily know that a decision to go or not go will enter into the coach’s thoughts about whether you should be first string or backup, or whatever. They just know that this is the guy who rules their world when they’re on the playing field or practice field, and this puts them in the position of having to figure out whether they think it’ll matter, and if so, whether they want to take a chance with not going.
I expect that if I were in their situation, I’d feel more comfortable in declining to go if I knew that I was either unambiguously the first-string guy, or equally unambiguously the backup, than if it was a close call. But that shouldn’t be something that the kid on the team should have to even think about.
