Thoughts and Prayers: The Religion Thread

You'd never get proof of those receipts from kid(s) who desperately want(s) to play.

And your second sentence is intellectually factual.

 

I wouldn't see why you wouldn't...after the school fired him. Don't you think the school, $1.7 million in the hole, would want to move heaven and earth to find those receipts?

A guy prayed on the field. I personally find him ridiculous. But his being ridiculous is protected so long as he's not unusually subjecting anyone to it. If they'd been able to prove it, they would have proven it.

Obviously that's what was happening...not it's not obvious.

 

Spoken like someone who has no clue how that situation works. People definitely notice when someone chooses not to participate in an event like this. I know. I've been that person often enough. There is definitely a feeling of pressure to conform, which would be increased if the person leading the prayer is a coach. Maybe it is legally inappropriate to assume coercion, but to say the person can't feel it is utter nonsense.

Also, the coach filed the suit to get his job back. That he had moved to the opposite end of the country and clearly had no interest in regaining that job is absolutely relevant. That his lawyers lied and claimed that he was going to move back for the job is also reelvant.

 

Thank you for conceding that.

Because, to be clear, that'd be the only standard here. college team runs onto the field, a portion of the star players go to the end zone and pray, the 102nd guy on the roster can feel whatever he likes about the implications of that and have that be real to him. Doesn't mean the star players can't pray however they please.

The case is done and settled, but the Slate seems to assume that if the prayer had been done in a way preferred by Slate - that is, not a spectacle - then it would have been OK. Which is applying the standard of stoicism on the exercise of religion.

 

Imagine a small-town, almost exclusively populated by Christians. The head football coach is a prominent member -- an occasional senior warden, perhaps, or a head deacon or some such thing -- of one of the two or three churches in town. Everybody in town knows everybody else's business. (I have some experience with this.)

Year in and year out a lot of the kids on the team are members of the coach's church. If the kids who aren't members of this church feel as if he plays favorites with his fellow church-members, does it matter that he doesn't? What if it's only the kids in town who aren't Christian who have such feelings? Would it be better if he eschewed church membership/participation altogether for the duration of his coaching career?

 

You stated that the person can't feel coercion in that situation. They can. The law may or may not recognize it, but it absolutely exists. For you to dismiss that, to try to lie and say it doesn't exist, is nonsense.

You are also misrepresenting what was written. The point in the article was that the coach and even some of the justices lied about the facts. They were not "hushed, personal expressions of faith." They were the soft of loud, showy performance that would absolutely put pressure on players to participate whether they wanted to or not.

 

Alme, we're talking past each other. I've no interest in the Bremerton story. Have a good day.

 

Two things:

>>The concept of "felt coercion" in this case is just not something you can base a judgment on. You can't just say in this case, well, if they felt it, you did it, because their feeling is your intent. Imagine how an imputation like that could be used against religions/belief systems that are less exercised in America.

>>Lied about the facts...there were videos of his prayers, oop. The guy prayed with members of both teams. Everybody knew what it was. For Slate to pretend this legal sleight of hand had the power of manipulation is silly.

Again, I find the guy's approach to Christian prayer bombastic and hypocritical. So what? He can do it. And so can kids who want to do it with him.

 

pre-Bremerton

https://www.aclu.org/documents/constitutional-amendment-school-prayer



Trouble is, the indeterminacy of things like "officially organized," "school environment" and "voluntary."

The school football field? Prayer organized by the head coach?

Unspoken favoritism for praying players?

How would any of this shake out if Coach Federalist Society had rolled out a prayer rug instead?

 

The US Supreme Court prior to 2019 isn't the 1st Amendment. Neither is the ACLU.

Unspoken favoritism strikes me as, like, not actually favoritism. It strikes me as the left version of "well we all know it's happening."

I'd have no problem with the prayer rug.

 

Neither would I. But I doubt the prayer rug would be met with the same legal, financial, political and judicial support.

And "coercion" is often indirect. Something implied, hinted at, unspoken.

Is "Nice pizzeria you got here. Be a shame if anything happened to it." a threat? Or an expression of loving concern?

 

Maybe, but that would not be a fair thing to ask of him. The difference here is that he isn't just involved with the church. He is bringing his prayers onto the field. He wasn't doing it quietly, either. It was a loud and showy. I am sure you can see how that might put pressure on players who didn't want to participate.