(CNN)As Joe Kennedy knelt to pray at the 50-yard-line Friday night he felt a presence around him.
And it grew.
The assistant football coach at Bremerton High School in Washington state was being joined by some of his opponents and fans — some of whom had come to the game to pray with him.
After the Knights’ homecoming loss to the Centralia Tigers, Kennedy walked to the middle of the football field, hoping to say his usual thanks to God by himself.
He had been told not to do it. The Bremerton School District had said if he prayed while on duty as a coach he would be violating federal law.
Kennedy, as he has done after most games for seven years, prayed anyway, defying the order. He opened his eyes to find a huge crowd of supporters around him.
Excellent.
I predict liberal attacks on this. The same liberal religion that supports chopping up unborn babies into pieces, and wants only their atheist anti-God position in the public square.
All others are verboten in the intolerant liberal lexicon.
Just the kind of thing I like to attack–when I’m not chopping up babies. (We should get into THAT again. One of my favorite subjects.) But the point about him doing it after the game is over and the players have left the field…isn’t a bad point at all.
If the public is still there, the event isn’t over. – Matthew 6:5.
What if the coach was a Muslim and went over to a prayer rug after the game?
We’d be having a different conversation here. The folks in Washington State would be doing news stories on how he brings his “unique personal faith” to everything he does as coach.
Steve,
You nailed that one.
If it was an after game hymn to raise awareness of the global warming cabal, it would be mandatory participation event by liberal staff for all students.
I went to an all guy football power catholic school in Indianapolis
Now it’s coed . They won the last 5 state championships a level up from their
Attendance and this year play 2 levels up
At the highest level
At no time does / did the team pray in public .
In the locker room we said a prayer that no one on either side got hurt and that if we won , we would be humble and if we lost , we would acknowledge a job well done
If we prayed on the field , it was done silently ( when we were behind and that wasn’t often :)
Be pious in private and teach your kids to block and tackle in public
PS
I saw BBall players making the sign of the cross before a FT .
The head of the Holy Cross Brothers told me to knock it off .
” God won’t help you make free throws ”
If you want to make them , practice more ”
Smart guy !
Mark,
So your OK as long as Christians are forced to pray in secret?
That’s a micro aggression.
I suppose if an abortion was conducted on the field, that would be divine, protected, speech in the church of liberalism.
Thank God no one is being forced to pray in secret. Thank God no is allowed to conduct their own religious ceremonies on the football field without making fair, open, and equal arrangements to use the public facilities for that private purpose.
Neither the end zone nor the 50-yard line is a free speech zone where anyone can attempt to attract attention upon themselves. The school was hosting a football game, not a free-for-all.
If you want to rent the football stadium or the cafeteria for church services, I bet the high school would be glad to show you the paperwork and the fees. Same is true in Wisconsin.
Abortion is medical, so you’ll need to be a doctor and follow contemporary guidelines about where you can do it. If you mean an abortion like in Numbers 5:11, I guess that could be considered religious.
“The folks in Washington State would be doing news stories on how he brings his “unique personal faith” to everything he does as coach.”
You can’t be serious. You don’t really think that would happen, do you? It’s more likely for him to be assaulted in the parking lot than for news stories to praise his behavior. You gotta be kidding me.
John,
Fair, open, equal arrangements?
Great. Everyone should have same shot at secular humanism religious funding known as public school aid….vouchers.
Somehow I think your pious principle falls away to favor the empty liberal religion monopoly when it comes to fairness and openness in funding.
BTW, Old Testament ceremonial law in book of Numbers is superceded by Christ’s New Testament covenant. Anyone who spends time studying the bible, understands that basic point of Christianity.
You are welcome to bible study at my church to review Old Testament ceremonial law and how Christ set a new covenant with us in New Testament.
Kevin, why do you think our founding fathers thought so highly and so preferentially of this “liberal religion” when crafting our new nation? Is it because they were all devout members of the Secular Church? Or perhaps it’s because they knew the obvious truth: secularism is the absence of religion and is required in a government precisely to preserve the religious freedom of the people.
I can’t wait to learn what dogmatic bit of nonsense your church has armed you with to refute that.
Scott,
Public schools did not exist as they exist today during the Founding Fathers time.
Founding Fathers meant Freedom OF religion not Freedom FROM religion.
Football coach wants to pray with whoever wants to join in after the game, that is Freedom OF religion.
You have no right to free FROM that display. Your option is to look away, and not deprive others of that kind of spiritual leadership.
To stomp of that, becomes the religious oppression the Founding Fathers originally fled from….and the Founders never meant to establish secular humanism (beleif that you are your own god) as the official state religion.
THE FIRST ACT OF CONTINENTAL CONGRESS WAS PRAYER! PSALM 35 (AS THE BRITISH WERE COMING).
So the very act of this great democracy is now verboten? There was a word for that in the 1770’s….treason.
“Public schools did not exist as they exist today during the Founding Fathers time.”
You’re right. They now educate girls and black kids.
The supreme court has been pretty clear on the issue, Kevin. The government should not play favorites, or even give the appearance of favoritism, when it comes to religious views. It should stay out of it, leaving religion to citizens. Period.
More to the point, government officials and employees should keep their exercise of religion out of their jobs. Teachers should refrain from leading, condoning, advocating, modeling, etc. any religious behavior while on the job. And not just them. Judges, legislators, executives–all of them should realize that they represent a deliberately secular operation. And that is by design, perhaps ironically, to preserve the religious liberty of citizens. No one should pay taxes to a government that turns around and contradicts them on strict matters of conscience. In the United States of America no one should ever have to listen to their president express religious views contradictory to their own. Nor should they ever sit in a public school classroom and listen to their teacher extoll the virtues of religious beliefs that they do not share.
Yes, yes. If you imagine that refraining from religion is just another kind of religion, then this whole thing makes no sense. Got it. Just like not playing baseball is a sport and health is just another disease.
Scott said,
” Teachers should refrain from leading, condoning, advocating, modeling, etc. any religious behavior while on the job. And not just them. Judges, legislators, executives–all of them should realize that they represent a deliberately secular operation.”
In that phrase right there, you just handcuffed any and all speech.
How do you determine whether speech has a “religious” component? (any talk about abortion and global warming easily has a religious component…why play favorites on either of those religions?)
That means speech must be REVIEWED…that, in and of itself, is a violation of the first amendement. Trust me. I know. when UW-Milwaukee reviewed my speech to sort for a component critical of the UW-Milwaukee administration, they tried to make my speech a verboten, non-verboten sort. I had to get lawyerts to remind them the REVIEW itself violates my rights.
I can picture your world ideal, the liberal speech SS….verboten!…non-verboten!
There are similar rules about laws, Kevin. Laws must have a secular purpose, otherwise they are unconstitutional. But wait! That means someone has to REVIEW each and every law! Someone has to determine whether it’s “verboten”! (You do use that word a lot. Is it supposed to evoke Naziism or something?)
But in actual fact, it works out just fine. If someone wants to challenge a law, they file suit in court where it gets adjudicated. The end. The world doesn’t end and you don’t end up with each and every local law going to the supreme court.
Same with not being religious in your classroom as a teacher. It simply isn’t the impossible thing you claim it is.
Also, I’ve just become a religion. Why not? Everything else is, according to you. Religion becomes a word with no meaning, because you can’t say what it isn’t. If it can’t be distinguished from what it is not, it is a word that means nothing.
Laws that make it a crime to whack me with a baseball bat is evaluating an action, not speech.
There is a difference between laws that legislate actions to protect your liberty vs. the absurd farce of reviewing political speech for content.
Under your postulate, we have to constantly review every shred of info in the classroom to prevent any possibility of God cooties. We would need cameras in the classroom, and all extra curricular activities (games and practices) that are always on to get to your comprehensive SS speech review.
Isn’t freedom from this kind of oppressive speech review simpler?
I’m old fashion, speech censorship and review is an abomination to me.
When did liberalism sell it’s soul on free speech?
Slander is speech and it’s “verboten.” WHAT?? You mean we have to put cameras everywhere to make sure someone isn’t slandering someone else??? When did freedom die?!?!
It’s simple. No one should have to listen to the government they pay for express a religious opinion different from his or her own. Ever. Therefore, the government should be secular and stay the hell out of it.
Great.
I want government to cease expressing it’s religious opinion on:
Global warming
Abortion
Birth control
Gay Marriage
What constitutes “prayer” in free speech
But you are all for those religious opinions not only being expressed by government but FUNDED by government.
Don’t pretend to be free of religion when your religion is transparent to everyone.
Again, your bizarre inability/unwillingness to understand the word “religion” is preventing you from making any sense, Kevin. Otherwise, good talk!
Scott,
You only slap the label “prayer” on this situation because your religion demands prayer be obliterated in the public sphere.
That makes you a passionate disciple for secular humanism.
Why don’t you just call it a few guys on their knee, mumbling to themselves in the middle of the field, and ignore it?
You can’t ignore it, because your liberal religion demands it be stomped on.
So give yourself credit, your passionate discipleship to liberalism makes many evangelical Christians jealous.
You’ve deftly managed to not address any of the points I raised in my previous couple of comments. I don’t think you could articulate my position if your life depended on it. I honestly don’t think you understand it.
Scott,
I undestand your position perfectly. You scream “religion” on any speech you do not like.
That allows you to demand censoring any speech that does not meet your secular religion template.
It’s the same shut up tactic liberals on campus use to suppress free speech exchange by saying “that offends me”, or that speech is “insensitive”.