I don’t know that it would be that blatant, but the point regarding the power dynamic does ring true. While a coach likely would not cut a player for not joining in the prayer, the coach could have that player ride the bench more during games, while allowing the joiners to get more play time. Someone would have to be keeping close track of a player’s time on the field both before and after the decision not to join-in, I suppose, to make a case.
Ummmmmm …
You could knock me over with a feather /s
That’s one issue, but another (and I think larger) issue is that a player who doesn’t want to be part of the coach’s religion will feel coerced to participate in the coach’s prayer, because he thinks it will get him more play time, or he wants to be included in the team event, or whatever. You don’t need measurable differences in play time for this decision to be a problem, because we already have the plain fact that players could feel coerced.
Very true. Agree.
And this is why the “How would they like it if satanists did this” fall flat. The response from the court would be, “Sure, they can do that, and if they get a large crowd of supporters to pray with them it would also be just as fine” realizing that that will never happen.
This is the way the Christians get around the Separation of Church and state. The government didn’t choose promote Christianity over other religions, they just set up the system such that the most popular one has dominance, which coincidentally always seems to be Christianity.
Might get a crowd if it is a proper celebration to Dionysus.
Hold my beer.
Shouldn’t that be « Hold my retsina! » ?
My boy embraces alcohol in ALL its forms.
Bumping this thread due to updates:
I’ll have to disagree with you on this. The way the Christians "get around SOCAS is quite simple: they flat out ignore it.
I’ll go a step further and suggest many of them don’t acknowledge it at all, and behave such that church and state are one-in-the-same, and always have been. I doubt the man at the center of this story even considered that he might be crossing some line.
Ironic considering his job.
As a Bremerton resident (outside city limits though) I’m not surprised. But I do take comfort in the fact it’s a shitty job at a shitty school in a shitty town. Hopefully he’ll be fired again soon.
Yeah, that’s the problem I would have with it. The coach could have very easily just prayed in private and gave thanks that few players were injured/nobody was killed or seriously injured, and for the benefits of the players, etc… and it would have been every bit as acceptable to God. Maybe even more so, because it would be more sincere.
But this clown is out there on the 50 yard line grandstanding to show off his religiosity and by virtue of his position, his geographic position, and the temporal positioning, making it seem more official than it really was, or should have been.
I imagine the question is going to come down to whether something the coach does like that is always associated with his position as coach and employee of the school system.
BTW… I went to Bremerton this last July to see the USS Turner Joy and the Puget Sound Naval Museum. Nice place! I was very pleasantly surprised by the town.
Yeah, I like it here. Especially in the summer. I probably shouldn’t have called it “shitty.”
It is a backwater though.
Quiz: What is absurd about this statement? 
Short answer: What’s not absurd?
is the opposite of