By Katie Pavlich | Townhall.com
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 Monday in favor of public High School
football coach Joseph Kennedy’s right to pray on the field after games.
“Joseph Kennedy lost his job as a high school football coach because he knelt at midfield after games to offer a quiet prayer of thanks. Mr. Kennedy prayed during a period when school employees were free to speak with a friend, call for a reservation at a restaurant, check email, or attend to other personal matters. He offered his prayers quietly while his students were otherwise occupied,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion. “Still, the Bremerton School District disciplined him anyway. It did so because it thought anything less could lead a reasonable observer to conclude (mistakenly) that it endorsed Mr. Kennedy’s religious beliefs. That reasoning was misguided.”
“Both the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First
Amendment protect expressions like Mr. Kennedy’s. Nor does a proper
understanding of the Amendment’s Establishment Clause require the
government to single out private religious speech for special disfavor.
The Constitution and the best of our traditions counsel mutual respect
and tolerance, not censorship and suppression, for religious and
nonreligious views alike,” Gorsuch continued.
