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How the Right Is Bringing Christian Prayer Back Into Public Schools

 
 
 
Copernicus said:
Getting back on topic, this NPR article does a more detailed job of describing the events in question and looking at both sides of the issue:

The Supreme Court ponders the right to pray on the 50-yard line​


It isn't yet clear whether the conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court will use this lawsuit to reimpose prayer sessions in public schools, and it isn't just a concern for atheists. Any minority religion is going to feel crowded out by the majority of Christians seeking to promote their faith, as was quite evidently the case with this coach's seemingly innocuous behavior of having a "private prayer" at the 50 yard line after each game. However, the conservative bloc is quite unanimously Christian, and they probably won't feel much empathy for those minority religions and for nonbelievers who might be inconvenienced by all the Jesus bombing. They are just going to have to learn to duck and cover when the calls to prayer start.
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On the brighter side, if the Xtians prevail and their boy gets re-elected, we can look forward some great entertainment.
Public floggings, executions and humiliations have long been the staple diet of Christian theocracy.
 
True story:

For decades, the local county council monthly meetings began with a prayer. The prayer was delivered by the pastor of whatever church the mayor was member.

Around 25 years ago this practice was called into question. Possibly by the pastor of Mayor Fred who had been elected several times in a row. Perhaps the pastor was tired of a monthly, unpaid, commitment. Second Tuesday of the month, regardless of his plans.

The new plan was to put every religious leader who volunteered into a hat. Some secretary or something would draw names and draw up the annual schedule of prayer leaders. There was a bit of consternation when the Catholic pastor was drawn. Lots of people weren't sure that Catholics really qualified as Christians. But they got over it, this being the modern world and all.

Shit really hit the fan when the woman who ran the local Hindu Association was drawn. OMG? Catholics are bad enough, but Hindus leading prayer here in Southern Indiana?
That was just too much.

The county council dispensed with the pre-meeting prayer altogether.
Tom
 
I don't mind prayer returning to the school as long as students (like myself when I was in school) are able to pray out loud without being punished for the contents of my prayer. I used to pray out loud that my social studies teacher would get their facts straight and stop relying on a board full of white people as their sole source for history lesson materials. As long as those prayers are welcome it's a win for all of us in my opinion. It helped me through school.
 
Gospel said:
I don't mind prayer returning to the school as long as students (like myself when I was in school) are able to pray out loud without being punished for the contents of my prayer. I used to pray out loud that my social studies teacher would get their facts straight and stop relying on a board full of white people as their sole source for history lesson materials. As long as those prayers are welcome it's a win for all of us in my opinion. It helped me through school.
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I don't think it's about the right of students to pray individually, as long as they don't disturb school function in some way, like saying their individual prayer out loud, especially a prayer that would annoy students and teachers. Nothing wrong with silent prayers. It's about the right to have the school conduct the prayers as a group ceremony, and the content of those prayers will be chosen by the person allowed to administer the prayer. TomC gave us an amusing example of how that kind of approach can lead to disruption, and it could certainly get messy if parents start entering the fray on behalf of the kind of prayers they think should be allowed. After all, we have a terrible mess these days with parents, school boards, and legislatures all trying to control the content of textbooks that teachers are required to teach with.
 
It's funny...

I was a religious child, and so extremely that it drove other students to dislike me and rightly so.

I had an argument with a biology teacher when I was in Biology II where I didn't want him to tell me about what he thought were facts and which I would only discuss from the perspective of the theory, because to me that's all it would be because I was told as vigorously of evidence of certain things as he was telling me of evidence of the other.

Of course people need to have their rights to their religious insanities given some measure of respect, even if it isn't a lot.

I also, even back then, would have rejected any prayer other people prayed on my behalf.

It's just not OK to socially leverage others into praying your prayers, and that's what this bullshit does.

Religious teachers shouldn't say there is a god. Nonreligious teachers shouldn't say there is no god. Both should be required to teach the facts of "natural" history, human history, math, and physics.

Both should be required to keep our of what prayers kids are expected to or leveraged to participate in.
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
I imagine SCOTUS will be fine with this level of prayer. The premise of the prayer seems disconnected with the event, in the wrong place, and has the appearance of civil endorsement of a religion, but what the religion isn't stated if it is to himself... even if the coach inserts his prayer at centerstage.
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SCOTUS rules they are fine with this level of prayer.

Justice Gorsuch said:
The Constitution and the best of our traditions counsel mutual respect and tolerance, not censorship and suppression, for religious and nonreligious views alike.
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I'll let my previous post talk to this.
Jimmy Higgins said:
On the other hand, a football field isn't typically considered a place of worship. Nor is the school acting against the man's faith... just his passive aggressive public "private" display of it. Does he need to be so public about his personal prayer? Assuredly, the school doesn't give a darn what he believes (and statistically, it is likely they all believe the same sky fairy exists), but they are a bit sensitive to lawyers, because... well lawyers.
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Isn't this the rub on suppression. This guy wasn't put on leave because he was a Christian.

decision said:
Respect for religious expressions is indispensable to life in a free and diverse Republic. Here, a government entity sought to punish an individual for engaging in a personal religious observance, based on a mistaken view that it has a duty to suppress religious observances even as it allows comparable secular speech. The Constitution neither mandates nor tolerates that kind of discrimination. Mr. Kennedy is entitled to summary judgment on his religious exercise and free speech claims.
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This is a bit misleading, as it should read a "government entity sought to punish a government entity..." As I note in the earlier post, football coaches aren't the average Government worker. They are often highly regarded members of communities. In college, they are often the highest (by far) paid employee. To consider them as just "an individual" is grossfully dishonest. They have a reach and influence that moves well beyond most employees at high schools, especially where high school football is closer to a religion than just being a sport.

I really wonder how this SCOTUS would have ruled on the Kim Davis case. It is like they just change proper nouns and what not as necessary to get to the most egregious conservative view of a case.
 
If it were just his case, I'd say they made the right call here. But it is one more worrying thing in the aggregate.
 
Politesse said:
If it were just his case, I'd say they made the right call here. But it is one more worrying thing in the aggregate.
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As I note, this guy works for the Government. He was given ample consideration on what he was doing, but continued to make an issue of it.
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
Politesse said:
If it were just his case, I'd say they made the right call here. But it is one more worrying thing in the aggregate.
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As I note, this guy works for the Government. He was given ample consideration on what he was doing, but continued to make an issue of it.
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It wasn't wise, to be sure. But public prayers of this particular kind are also a matter of settled law; the school was therefore in the wrong for asking him to stop, and that matters in a courtroom regardless of whether his response was appropriate. I feel that one can't go complaining about stare decisis in one case while denying its relevance in others, without undermining every "side" over the long haul. We have but one civilian court system at the end of the day, and if it loses coherency then it will cease to matter what any judge decides in any particular case. A trend that Justice Roberts is rightfully worried about but seems powerless to address due to his own axes of accumulated political compromise and corruption.

Much as with the recent religious education case, I'm not happy about the decision, I just don't think it was the wrong decision legally speaking. It is, as I said, quite worrying as an indicator of broader trends in the Court, when taken altogether.

The movement to dismantle reproductive planning was likewise built with a thousand little foundations, many of them entirely legal, until they were emboldened enough to start taking steps that weren't. It's no secret that they are gunning for public education, any more than it was a secret that they were gunning for abortion, and I believe it will be on their laundry list of targets as they continue to dismantle democratic rule in the US.
 
Politesse said:
Jimmy Higgins said:
Politesse said:
If it were just his case, I'd say they made the right call here. But it is one more worrying thing in the aggregate.
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As I note, this guy works for the Government. He was given ample consideration on what he was doing, but continued to make an issue of it.
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It wasn't wise, to be sure. But public prayers of this particular kind are also a matter of settled law; the school was therefore in the wrong for asking him to stop, and that matters in a courtroom regardless of whether his responce was appropriate.
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His right to religious expression as an individual is NOT the same as it is as a government representative. He wasn't leading some generic prayer as an individual. He was using his role as a government representative at a government held event on government property as an opportunity to promote his religion. He wasn't at some random picnic or a church or at home.

Politesse said:
The movement to dismantle reproductive planning was likewise built with a thousand little foundations, many of them entirely legal, until they were emboldened enough to start taking steps that weren't. It's no secret that they are gunning for public education, any more than it was a secret that they were gunning for abortion, and I believe it will be on their laundry list of targets as they continue to dismantle democratic rule in the US.
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They aren't gunning for abortion. They are gunning for women in the workplace.
 
link
article said:
Gorsuch said lower courts should no longer follow the “Lemon test” criticized by religious conservatives, which called on judges to decide whether the government’s action might look to a reasonable observer as government endorsement of religion.

His opinion did not specifically overrule the test that grew out of the court’s decision in Lemon v. Kurtzman. But dissenting liberal Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan said that was the effect.

“This decision does a disservice to schools and the young citizens they serve, as well as to our Nation’s long-standing commitment to the separation of church and state,” Sotomayor wrote.
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These decisions are effectively tearing our judicial system apart. You can only ignore precedence for so long before the rulings make it impossible to judge.

As a reminder, Lemon v Kurtzman is over 50 years old (8-1 finding)! And it becomes just the latest thing this Supreme Court thinks should never have happened. They are literally reshaping the interpretation of Constitutional Law as per their own image. They don't particularly care what the previous courts ruled, they don't feel they should be constrained by those rulings.
 
It occurs to me... SCOTUS didn't rule that the coach is allowed to pray at center field. They ruled that the School District has to allow him to pray at center field. That the school district has no say in the matter.

I mean, this wasn't some sort of some people were allowed to and others weren't. The school tried to create a policy that'd just make life simpler. Instead, SCOTUS sides with the coach indicating that Coach gets to tell the School District what the prayer policy is on football fields immediately after games, in a very not private setting (isn't there a Jesus quote somewhere in there?). I'm curious if he is allowed to hold mass at center field?

I'm curious what I'm allowed to force my employer to endure... starting an "individual" prayer session in the conference room, and then gathering lots of people to get involved in it.
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
I'm curious what I'm allowed to force my employer to endure... starting an "individual" prayer session in the conference room, and then gathering lots of people to get involved in it.
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Is the 'conference' room something you'd ordinarily be able to book for personal/non-work matters in your lunch hour, say?

My workplace has an informal choir. I don't see why a choir would be able to use workplace facilities while someone who wanted to start an individual prayer (or conduct group prayer) shouldn't.
 
Metaphor said:
Jimmy Higgins said:
I'm curious what I'm allowed to force my employer to endure... starting an "individual" prayer session in the conference room, and then gathering lots of people to get involved in it.
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Is the 'conference' room something you'd ordinarily be able to book for personal/non-work matters in your lunch hour, say?

My workplace has an informal choir. I don't see why a choir would be able to use workplace facilities while someone who wanted to start an individual prayer (or conduct group prayer) shouldn't.
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That's very different, and I believe that many schools allow for religion-oriented extracurricular groups to form. However, this incident was about the coach choosing to turn the prayer into a disruptive public spectacle that drew complaints. Some people felt that the rush of supporters to gather around him to pray was causing injuries and damage that the school could become liable for. At this point, the prayer is going to become an official team activity. What about players that may not wish to pray with him? Do they have real team spirit? Are they going to be noticed by the coach and pressured to join the prayer ceremony? Will they be singled out for bullying by other players and students? If the team loses, will it be because not everyone showed sufficient faith to sway God's will? If it were just a private club that met on school grounds like all the other clubs, that would be different, but football games are a big deal for players.

This coach had a perfect right to pray, but he agreed with the school regulation that he had to keep it off school property. Then he felt it unfair that he could not lead the team in prayer openly on school property, so he started doing it again for the cameras. The Christian majority on the Supreme Court sympathized with his perspective, not that of those who might not want to see their team participation as lending support for a religious belief that they didn't want to support.
 
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