The Supreme Court has sided with a former Washington state high school football coach who sought to kneel and pray on the field after games.
The court ruled 6-3 for Joseph Kennedy, who claimed that Bremerton School District violated his religious freedom by telling him he could not pray so publicly after games, which he had done with team members during his assistant coaching tenure at Bremerton High School.
In a vote that had the court’s conservative justices in the majority and liberal members in dissent, the ruling determined the coach’s prayer was protected by the First Amendment.
"Both the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment protect expressions like Mr. Kennedy’s," Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion. "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."
In the dissent opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the court "consistently has recognized that school officials leading prayer is constitutionally impermissible" and said the ruling did a "disservice" to schools, students and "the nation's longstanding commitment to the separation of church and state.”
Kennedy, who now lives in Florida, has said that if the Supreme Court ruled in his favor, he would return to Bremerton and seek to regain his job as a part-time football coach.
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