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Ken Masugi at American Greatness Cheers the restoration of the right to pray, yes, even in public!
The Court’s opinion in the 6-3 decision was written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, President Trump’s first appointee, and relied on both the free exercise and the free speech clauses of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech . . .”
It may surprise some that the conduct protected by the decision should have ever been questioned. Joseph Kennedy, an assistant high school football coach, would briefly pray in private at the end of his team’s games, sometimes at the 50-yard line. Often players would join him, and sometimes even the staff and players of the opposing team would, too. In no instance did he require or urge anyone else to join him in prayer.
Nonetheless, the school district felt (or hoped) his prayers might violate the establishment clause, so they asked him to cease his prayers, which had come to public attention and drawn media coverage. His attorney replied he would not, and the district fired the coach.
Justice Gorsuch hit the nail on the head, writing that..
“Mr. Kennedy’s private religious exercise did not come close to crossing any line one might imagine separating protected private expression from impermissible government coercion,” Gorsuch wrote. Moreover,
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. Here, a government entity sought to punish an individual for engaging in a brief, quiet, personal religious observance doubly protected by the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment.
Go read it all, Masugi, shares some of the “thoughts” that Justice Sotomayor had in her dissent. Frankly, I wonder how anyone could read the 1st amendment and NOT see the right to prayer and speech of the coach were clearly and egregiously violated. But, Sotomayor is, I imagine far more a Collectivist than an Individualist. She might even believe that prayer is only allowable if you do it in the basement of your house, where no one could overhear your conversation with God. How Marxist of her.
