Supreme Court sides with high school coach who led prayer on football field
thehill.com
thehill.com
https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/06/justices-side-with-high-s...
My personal opinion, if it matters is that Gorsuch argues that we need to assess religious exercise and the establishment clause based on what the founders knew and thought, and he misconstrued (as shown in the pictures in the dissent) the facts of the case to achieve his preferred outcome.
But even if he hadn't, there's a danger to Originalism, in that people in the past didn't have the information we have now. The founders probably weren't nearly as aware of how children are uniquely vulnerable to coercion and influence by authority figures, for example.
Thomas Jefferson wrote (and this quote was inscribed on his memorial), "I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as a civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
Good thing they built in a mechanism for revision then.
Their intent is relatively clear. If you don't like the rule, change the rule. Anything else is vigilantism.
On similar ground it may be proved that no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation. They may manage it then, and what proceeds from it, as they please, during their usufruct. They are masters too of their own persons, and consequently may govern them as they please. But persons and property make the sum of the objects of government. The constitution and the laws of their predecessors extinguished then in their natural course with those who gave them being. This could preserve that being till it ceased to be itself, and no longer. Every constitution then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force, and not of right.
(Note that the 19 years is based on analysis of lifespans, etc., at the time, and is basically a model of generational turnover, so the same logic would get a slightly longer time today.)
https://jeffersonpapers.princeton.edu/selected-documents/tho...
So, at least as far Jefferson goes, the framers intent would appear to be (to borrow from Lin Manuel Miranda): “Uh, do whatever you want, we’re super dead.”
Of course, the cult that deifies an artificially constructed image of “the Founders” to justify their ideology wouldn't approve of that at all.
> “Respect for religious expressions is indispensable to life in a free and diverse Republic—whether those expressions take place in a sanctuary or on a field, and whether they manifest through the spoken word or a bowed head,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority.
The coach is a public employee acting in an official capacity. This ruling basically allows any public employee to practice religion as part of their governmental duties.
An easy retort to my argument is that most interpretation is easy, surely we only hear about contentious ones? This is true, but it's like having a seatbelt that only works when you don't crash
Same logic applies elsewhere. Should governmental employees be banned from wearing hijabs(they’re a public form of religious expression)? Should we ban/fire a Muslim employee for praying in public(if there’s no available private space) while working as a member of TSA? Limited powers on governmental religious discrimination is a good thing.
In this case, I would say yes, the coach should not be allowed to pray because the prayer was done as part of his role as a coach. Like if a social worker prays that a child is ok while driving to a home visit, then that’s ok. But if the social worker forces the family to pray then that’s different.
Frankly, I think the argument to support Kennedy was pretty compelling. The first amendment allows for the free practice of any religion by the people. It makes no commentary on the government specifically censoring any religion. In fact it appears to be just the opposite. The text reads that the government has a duty to not act at all when religious expression is made by the people.
And that's all in public schools!
From Sotomayor's dissent, page 18: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/21-418_i425.pdf
It's important to note that coercion doesn't have to be explicit with observed punishments and rewards, and Sotomayor explains this quite clearly (including how courts have previously held this to be true for many years).
Like most SCOTUS opinions and dissents, these are technically well-written, accessible, and easy to read - I would encourage you to do so. They sometimes even border on enjoyable to read (although maybe I'm just weird). The case as laid out in the dissent is rather egregious, and it's shocking that the SCOTUS upheld such a clear violation of the establishment clause. It's shocking that they even heard the case to begin with.
The school district practically begged the coach to work with them to find an avenue for him to express his religious beliefs through prayer, without creating a coercive environment for students. At every opportunity, the coach declined to find a way forward that didn't violate the establishment clause.
It's important to know that "prayer in schools" is a rallying point for conservative christians, and the coach's behavior was intentionally provocative. Holding big, public prayers like this is a strategy designed to continually test the limits of the establishment clause, with the goal of ultimately breaking it.
A piece of anecdotal evidence that I always think about when stuff like this comes up - I went to a very, very conservative christian school. Prayer was pervasive (as you might expect), but it was never used to make a public scene like this. Ever.
Finally, his behavior is an affront to prayer itself, which Jesus himself makes clear in Matthew 6:5-6.
> And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
It says a lot about his motives. That's not exactly an obscure passage of the Bible.
> The coach is a public employee acting in an official capacity. This ruling basically allows any public employee to practice religion as part of their governmental duties.
You understand it perfectly.
I suspect that is what this opens the door to intentionally.
> 5 And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
> 6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
It's one thing to allow Christians to be Christians, but if they want to be Christians they need to be better Christians and pray in private.
> It’s about time that the Christian in America realizes he’s an American first and a Christian second.