Obligatory Joel Osteen/Martin Short/Tim Allen meme.
ETA: Given the makeup of the current SCOTUS, I have no reason to believe that reason and good sense will prevail. The coach will win.
Of fucking course.
This seems like a pretty tame test case. I want the Supreme Court to rule on whether a Black high school student must sit at the back of the bus without healthcare with a praying football coach inspecting her genitalia as she is forced to give birth to a child conceived by rape.
But where does the student’s unregistered handgun fit in?
What religion requires slaughtering live goats during half time?
The core holding that a public employee “kneeling and quietly offering a personal prayer” (paraphrasing Gorsuch) is constitutionally protected is 100% reasonable. What is disappointing is the court chose to claim that was the narrative here and what happened here, when it was just simply not the case. This coach actually quietly offered a personal prayer for several years, with zero problems ever. Then he started making a big media circus out of it, inviting local politicians, local media, including kids from both teams etc. At one of the “last straw” events, kids were actually tripping over local news camera crews that had showed up to film him.
The school district’s problem with him came when it turned into a public spectacle where there was a plausible claim he had recruited students to pray with him, and inviting local media and politicians to attend. The school district made some legal errors in its earliest filings on the case, and later dropped some of those arguments in favor of more reasonable ones, but the court largely ignored all that and just accepted the Fox News “facts of the case” to arrive at the ruling it wanted to issue.
Luckily the ruling itself is fairly reasonable, but I’ll note that it’s yet another deviation from the court’s normal behavior. It is deliberately choosing to ignore the progression of the case, and even choosing to issue rulings on things that frankly were no longer ripe for judicial review (in this case the coach moved out of the district and retired to Florida, it is a fiction that he is interested in being reinstated, which similar technicalities has seen this same conservative Supreme Court throw out large numbers of appeals from other types of litigants.)
To me, this is a big issue with the Court these days – their rulings are filled with factual errors and right-wing talking points.
They just better not drop a knee during the National Anthem. Some folks would be forever confused.
Also, this is going to freak some folks out when the first Muslim brings a prayer rug.
You know that whole “May you live in interesting times” is not all that.
This just isn’t going to happen. And, neither will a Satanist get hired as a football coach, or whatever.
Heh, I dunno about that. The Satanic Temple is looking good in their response to the current abortion fiasco. I’ve urged friends to look into their actions and have recruited a couple of people (guess I’m proselytizing)
While the SCOTUS decision is clearly a major set back, the Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed religious rights. The Satanic Temple is currently suing the state of Texas to protect our civil rights. Our Texas claims are untethered to the due process Clause. They are a direct interpretation of the right of conscience in the Free Exercise Clause. We have requested alternative science-based abortion counseling in Minnesota. We will also be suing the FDA for unrestricted religious access to Mifepristone and Misoprostol.
Actually before the coach was dismissed the local Satanic Temple had already put the district on notice that it wanted to host a prayer at the games as well if the coach was being permitted to do so. Now that there is a national standard it is all but guaranteed at some districts around the country local Satanists will make “good trouble.”
That’s not even a constitutional issue. Anyone who is allowed on the field is allowed to pray on the field. They’ll just get jeered, booed, or beaten up.
ETA: My point is that the coach has a specific government role that (IMO) should have disallowed this prayer show, but Satanic Temple randos have no such power over the players.
The school district never barred anyone from praying anywhere.
Someone correct me if I am wrong here, but aren’t public school teachers not allowed to lead prayers in the classroom? And, if the teacher is also a coach, and wants to lead a prayer on the football field, that IS allowed now? How is the classroom different from the football field - they are both on public school property, right?
Expect them to go after Engel next. I think the coach (who is a 4-star asshole IMO) was on semi-solid ground when he just prayed by himself. It’s when he started “leading” prayers that he stepped over the Constitutional line. Obviously the ayatollahs on the SC felt differently. Even at meeting of the local Alive Club, the prayers must be student initiated and led. The faculty advisers are only there as supervision, not as instructors.
The recounting of the facts is different from the opinion and the dissent, but basically the opinion states that the coach was instructed by the school board to stop giving a mini-sermon when the students were gathering around and he did so, but refused to stop kneeling and silently praying at the 50 yard line. So the ruling is based on a situation where a teacher/coach silent offers prayers - so it would be akin to a teacher crossing themselves in class and silently praying. One may argue that’s not what happened (and I have no idea whose version of the facts is correct), but the Gorsuch opinion is based on a silent kneeling prayer.
Which is even scarier. Gorsuch decides what reality is.
I bet if he brought out a prayer blanket, faced Mecca and did the whole Muslim prayer procedure the ruling would have gone the other way.
The part about this that bothers me is the power dynamic between the coach and players. Players aren’t exactly in a position to say no to participation in a prayer; they might be demoted or cut from the roster. In other words, it was forcing his religion on them.