BREMERTON, Washington, October 22, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – A high school football coach has defied his superiors by praying.
For seven years, Bremerton High School Coach Joe Kennedy has always prayed brief, personal thanks on the 50-yard line after games were over and players and coaches had cleared the field.
When asked by students what he was doing taking a knee, the ex-Marine simply replied, “I was thanking God for you guys.” Some students asked if they could join in, and Kennedy told them, “It's a free country; you can do what you want to.”
But Kennedy got a cease and desist order from school officials on September 17. “School staff may not indirectly encourage students to engage in religious activity…or even engage in action that is likely to be perceived as endorsing (or opposing) religion or religious activity,” the letter read.
The district's letter, signed by Superintendent Aaron Leavell, also brought up Kennedy's practice of saying a prayer in the locker room before games. “Both activities would very likely be found to violate the First Amendment's Establishment Clause, exposing the district to significant risk of liability.”
Leavell wrote that even talks with students “may not include religious expression” and “must remain entirely secular in nature.”
The letter also told Kennedy that if students prayed, he could not kneel or even bow his head in respect.
Kennedy complied for a couple of games, but he ultimately contacted Liberty Institute, a non-profit law firm dedicated to defending religious liberty. Liberty Institute sent the school district a response on October 14, 2015.
“The school is misapplying the law, and actually stripping Coach Kennedy's right to personally pray after games – a right protected by the First Amendment and extensive case law precedent,” the Liberty Institute website explains.
“Coach Kennedy engages in private religious expression during non-instructional hours, after his official duties as a coach have ceased. He neither requests, encourages, nor discourages students from participating in his personal prayers, or coming to where he prays. His prayers neither proselytize nor denigrate the beliefs of others.”
“No reasonable observer could conclude that a football coach who waits until the game is over and the players have left the field and then walks to mid-field to say a short, private, personal prayer is speaking on behalf of the state,” the letter stated.
The Liberty Institute letter points out an 8th Circuit court decision in 2004, Wigg v. Sioux Falls School District, that “affirmed the right of a public elementary school teacher to participate in an explicitly Christian, proselytizing, after-school program in the same school in which she taught.”
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In the Wigg decision, the court said a school's “effort to avoid an establishment of religion … unnecessarily limits the ability of its employees to engage in private religious speech on their own time.” The court concluded that “preventing [school] employees from participating in religious-based activities [was] viewpoint discriminatory and … unconstitutional.”
“The First Amendment guarantees that every American has a right to exercise their religious liberty by praying privately,” Hiram Sasser, deputy chief counsel for Liberty Institute, told LifeSiteNews. “All we are asking is for the school district to respect the coach's rights. We hope they will do the right thing and allow the coach to pray.”
Coach Dave Daubenmire was sued by the ACLU in the late 1990s for praying. After a two-year battle, the ACLU offered him an out of court settlement. “Once again we are seeing an example of Judicial Tyranny unfold before our very eyes,” Daubenmire told LifeSiteNews. “There is no law creating 'a separation between the church and the state,' and despite what the courts might say Coach Kennedy does not forfeit his Constitutional rights when he becomes a coach.”
“This is one more example of the attack on Christian liberties currently being waged in America, by those who wish nothing less than to destroy the foundations upon which this nation was built,” Coach Daubenmire continued to LifeSiteNews. “Only Congress is prohibited from establishing a (state) religion[.] … Coach Kennedy, and thousands of teachers and coaches across America, do not forfeit their religious freedom when they go to work for the schools.”
“The right is unalienable – it cannot be taken away – as in the free exercise clause of the First Amendment.”
The school district's lawyers responded on October 16, writing that they largely agree with Liberty Institute legal reasoning, but because of “potential liability,” any perceived violations of their policy “cannot be tolerated.”
“The district is in no way taking away an athletic coach's freedom of expression,” Superintendent Leavell stated on the district's website. “What we are doing is what every state-funded agency and school district must do: abide by the laws that govern us.”
On Friday the 16th, Coach Kennedy did what he's always done: pray after the game. Liberty Institute's website stated, “It is very possible that Coach Kennedy will now face being suspended or fired by the school for simply practicing his faith.”
On Monday the 19th, the district released a statement, saying it “continues to hope that the district and Mr. Kennedy can arrive at common understandings that will ensure that the rights of all community members are honored and the law is respected.” District officials are reviewing Friday night's prayer to see if Kennedy violated policy.
Coach Kennedy told the Bremerton Patriot newspaper, “Whatever happens, happens[.] … But I'm going to be bold in my faith and I'm going to fight the good fight and I want to set that example for every one of the kids if you believe in something.”
After Friday's game, Bremerton High School graduate Wesley Bonetti complained officially to the district about Kennedy praying. It was the first time anyone complained about Kennedy's regular practice. “He can say it's a private and silent but he is a school employee until all the players are out of their uniforms and on their way home,” Bonetti said.
Federal courts have repeatedly ruled against religion in recent years. A school employee must yield his or her free exercise rights when in conflict with the school's mandated religious neutrality (Berger v. Rensselaer Central School, 7th Cir., 1993). Schools may not allow public prayers, even by students, at extracurricular events – even optional ones (Santa Fe Ind Sch Dist v. Doe, 2000). Coaches may not initiate or even supervise student prayer (Doe v. Duncanville Ind Sch Dist, 5th Cir., 1995), and coaches may not participate in or appear to endorse any religious activity – even if entirely student-initiated (Borden v. Sch Dist of E Brunswick, 3rd Cir., 2008).
