Another Great Victory

The Supreme Court today issued a decision in the case of Coach Kennedy. You may recall that Coach Kennedy was fired from his job as a high school football coach by the Bremerton, Washington, school district because he prayed by himself on the 50-yard line after each game. 

Overtime, students voluntarily joined him and that’s when school officials tried to muzzle Coach Kennedy. First, he was ordered to stop praying on the football field, and eventually his coaching contract was canceled.

Believe it or not, Sports Illustrated saw this praying coach as a threat to democracy. They may know a thing or two about sports, but they evidently know nothing about constitutional law or democracy. 

Thankfully, six justices on the Supreme Court disagreed with the “legal eagles” at Sports Illustrated. Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch declared:

"Both the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment protect expressions like Mr. Kennedy's. 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."

Once again, I shudder to think how differently this case would have turned out if Hillary Clinton, not Donald Trump, had replaced Justices Scalia, Kennedy and Ginsburg.