When Joseph Kennedy was an assistant high school football coach in Bremerton, Washington, he began praying at the 50-yard line immediately after games. Soon, his players gathered around and along came the coaches and players from opposing teams. The school district asked him to find a more private place to pray to avoid the appearance of an official endorsement of his religious views. The Justices seem inclined to rule in favor of the coach.
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NBC News further reported: “The Supreme Court on Monday seemed inclined to rule for a Washington state high school football coach who lost his job after he refused to stop praying on the field immediately after games.
Joseph Kennedy said the school district violated his religious freedom by telling him he couldn’t pray so publicly after the games, but the district said it was trying to avoid the appearance that the school was endorsing a religious point of view.
The case presented an important test of the current court’s notion of the separation between church and state. During nearly two hours of courtroom argument, the conservative majority seemed prepared to rule that the coach was expressing his own private religious views and was not speaking for the school district.
“The government doesn’t endorse all private speech just because it takes place on school grounds,” Kennedy’s lawyer, Paul Clement, told the court.”
