I have a problem with my tax dollars funding any religious practices.

I, for one, would rather join a Satanic prayer than a Christian prayer.

As long as they don’t allow only Christians to pray, this may be more-or-less livable.

If they discrimate against non-christians…. that’s bad.

Why would I have a problem?Religious pedophiles already don’t pay taxes.
A loophole is a loophole, right?

I utterly and absolutely agree with @janbb.

A few years ago I read a book about Roger Williams, founder of Providence, R.I., in 1636 after escaping the oppressive Massachusetts Bay Colony. He championed the principle of separation of church and state to keep government out of the practice of religion. It was Christianity he was defending, not secular authority.

It could be argued that with these recent and possible future developments (and their creeping history), government is once again getting into the business of religion. Or don’t religious institutions in practice owe any debt in return for the shelter of secular authority…such as preaching politics from the pulpit?

I wouldn’t be thrilled but I do understand it’s all or nothing, with religion, so I can accept that.

I mean, I love Satan, so of course I would.

My problem is with people being compelled to pray if they don’t want to. I don’t care if a coach wants to pray after a game. Just don’t lead the rest of the team in the prayer or ostracize the one kid who isn’t comfortable with it.

The Establishment Clause of the Constitution says Congress can “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This from your cnn link.

Is a coach silently praying an establishment of a religion or is it a first amendment right?

@Demosthenes As I understood things, the school offered him an area off to the side to do just that. That wasn’t good enough, he need it to be out loud and in the center of the field.

Anybody can pray anywhere, anytime. It doesn’t require any special place or equipment or posture or performance. It’s not about ostentation. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus admonishes his hearers (Matthew 6.6) not to make a show of praying in public, as the hypocrites do, but to do so in private.

I don’t think anyone has a rightful claim to special accommodations for public prayer in a setting that is not inherently concerned with religious practice.

However I may feel about obeying God’s various rules, people who are claiming to worship him ought to be paying attention.

Hail Satan, I suppose.
I’d like to see church and state with a hard line between them.

What @janbb said.

How does a guy kneeling to pray after a game cost the taxpayers anything

@SnipSnip I suggest you look at the second link about the other ruling.

Yes and no. I don’t agree with Satan worship, but then they don’t agree with Christianity. From that aspect I wouldn’t care if a public school teacher said a private prayer to Satan on their own time. Nor would I care if there were a Satanic school looking for public funds. But the question being asked goes beyond what has been decided by the SCOTUS. It applies status to things that are not in the rulings on the cases being cited.

The rights are the rights. It has nothing to do with one denomination or another. It has nothing to do with whether it is Christian, Buddhist, Taoist, Hindi, Islamic, Jewish, or Satanic. The Constitution says Congress can make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. In neither case is that being done. There is nothing making any claim of a state religion. There is nothing saying what religion a school can have to be eligible for tax dollars, though as a school it must be able to show it can pass standardized goals.

The case of Coach Kennedy is an example of the government trying to prohibit the free exercise of religion. If the Coach were forcing his players to pray with him, I could see a problem.

But all this is interesting to me. I remember when a school had students write an Islamic prayer as part of a geography class. Many of the same people screaming about the separation of church and state now were supporting that then. So is it just that you don’t like Christianity or is it that you truly believe that nothing religious should ever touch anything secular?

I agree with @janbb but if this is how we’re going to play, why not?

I have a 30 something year old friend who recently joined the Satanic Temple to secure her freedoms to bodily autonomy. If we can use religion as an excuse for certain things I just might join her.

I see nothing wrong with this: THERE ARE SEVEN FUNDAMENTAL TENETS

I
One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
II
The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
III
One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.
IV
The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one’s own.
V
Beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one’s beliefs.
VI
People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one’s best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.
VII
Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.

I’m with team @janbb.

@seawulf575 “So is it just that you don’t like Christianity…”

I’m Christian.

”...or is it that you truly believe that nothing religious should ever touch anything secular?”

I agree with @janbb. I don’t want tax dollars going to religious activities.

I completely support the right of a Christian, Jew, Sikh, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist etc. to practice their faith in school. The problem is when the school employees do so with the kids. It creates a power dynamic that can pressure kids into participating in faith-based activities that they otherwise would not.

For sake of argument, let’s say a coach of the football team happened to have a big hail Satan prayer on the 50 yard line after every game with any players that wanted to participate. Further, let’s say Timmy felt uncomfortable doing so because of his Baptist faith, so he didn’t participate. Timmy didn’t get much game time that season, and ultimately never got a scholarship. Timmy can’t prove this was because of his religious beliefs, but it certainly felt that way to him. See the problem with organized faith being held as an optional activity?

I would be furious if anyone tried to prevent Timmy from praying to Jesus, just as I’d be furious if someone wanted to prevent coach Damien from praying to Satan. It’s the collective prayer on the 50 yard line that’s the problem. It creates expectations and social pressures that should not exist.

I also agree that kids shouldn’t be writing muslim prayers as assignments and that other phrases in Arabic are more appropriate.

@janbb This is common sense. Tuition assistance is for the student, not the school. I’ve read the opinion twice, and they got this right. You can’t tell people that the state will give all students tuition help with whatever school they choose to go to unless the school is a religious school. That is discrimination and unconstitutional.

@SnipSnip “Tuition assistance is for the student, not the school.”

Wait, the student can spend it on something other than tuition? I thought it had to go to the school?

@gorillapaws You took the words right out of my mouth. We should be scrutinizing the tuition prices. All of this money being fed into schools is only helping to encourage tuition hikes in my opinion.

@gorillapaws So now you are punishing a student that wants to attend a religious school. That is discrimination and unconstitutional.

@seawulf575 Using public funds to transfer money to private religious institutions is establishing religion and explicitly forbidden in the Constitution. It has been interpreted as such for a very long time, but I’ve got better things to do than trying to research the nuances of that precedent.

@gorillapaws And yet the SCOTUS disagrees with you. Guess they aren’t the legal scholars you are.

I guess they are “Right -Wingers ! ”

@seawulf575 You’re assuming they care about legal scholarship.

Religious instruction has no business in a state funded institution.

I’m starting a religion.

@JLeslie I’m actually an ordained minister. No shit.

You can be one too.

Someone really should start a Satanistic, paganistic, Muslimistic, Wiccanistic school and see how much Federal funding it gets, which we all know will be a big, fat, zero and then sue the crap out of the government to teach them a lesson.

https://thesatanictemple.com/pages/after-school-satan

@raum: I love the video and the logo!

@jca2 They do have merchandise. :P

@gorillapaws and you are assuming they do not.

@Blackwater_Park “Religious instruction has no business in a state funded institution.” So then discussion about abortion should not be allowed in state funded schools either because of the Hyde Amendment? Federal funds cannot be used to provide abortions so, just like the extension of them not being able to create a national religion, we just should have anything to do with abortions if the feds are supporting the school?

@WhyNow The coach prayed on the 50-yard line, his words were audible to those nearby, so it wasn’t viewed by many as a private moment of prayer. Rather, it was more like leading a prayer, especially since he is an authority figure. So, the concern was his players may have felt they had to join in.

Worse than that is the obvious direction the court is going in; they are headed down the path of a theocracy. It’s unAmerican and downright scary.

Oh please quit with the bullshit @WhyNow .

Because I don’t believe in theocracy, I hate the American way of life? That’s insulting and beneath even you.

You have views. I have differnt views. THat doesn’t make me unAmerican. It makes me a free person.

I think kneeling down during the National Anthem is a quiet moment of prayer. Praying for equality and safety.

What about Muhamed Ali, Mike Tyson, Snoop, Karim Abdul Jabar and a million others who are open about their path of faith? Tom Cruise, John Travolta and other’s have done the same. Tim Tebow and lots of working athletes are very open, as they should be.
We talk about the war on Christianity because of cases like this. The Muslims don’t offend me, the Buddhist shrines in our millions of chinese restaurants don’t offend me. We have openly Muslim and native representatives in government now, and that’s great. Diversity is what makes this country crazy beautiful.
Perhaps ya’ll should practice the tolerance that you expect from Christians.

@KNOWITALL: _”…Mohamed Ali, Mike Tyson, Snoop,…” et al, we’re not promoting their faith on the taxpayers’ education-specific dime.

The coach is a specific figure of authority who has a distinct influence on the team players. If he was inviting them to his home for prayer meetings, it would be wildly inappropriate.

@KNOWITALL Those people were just doing personal prayers (as far as I know). They aren’t leading a prayer for a team, they aren’t in leadership positions where they can favor a player or staff member for participating, and it wasn’t in a government institution.

I completely agree about the diversity, I love the diversity in our country, I’m fine with the various temples and churches. Public school is a whole different story.

I’d guess most coaches who try to do this just want the best for their team, but it also can be a persuasion tactic. There is peer pressure whether the coach intends it or not.

The reason Christianity is different is because it’s the majority religion. There are pockets around America where other faiths are practiced in significant numbers, like the Mormons in Salt Lake or the Muslims in Dearborn, but overall Christianity is the largest presence.

Edit: I’m not saying Mormons aren’t Christian, just that they are a sect that many Christians see as not mainstream).

Also, you see Christianity under “attack” more, because they are statistically more likely to get attention since they are over 70% of the country. Additionally, they are the ones usually trying to push the envelope.

@KNOWITALL: To me, the Coach praying on the field, loudly, is equivalent to the teacher praying in a classroom, loudly. People are welcome to join the Coach in prayer, and perhaps the majority do, but there may be a few who feel uncomfortable, are not into it, are Atheists, are a different religion. If the teacher did it, it would be the same thing.

I’m a Christian and so one might think I would be supportive of this environment, but I’d be one who is not into praying for things. If I were on a sports team, or in a classroom, I would probably feel obligated to join in.

@jca2 The coach chose to pray, some students joined him. I don’t see the pressure that some do.

And he led prayer in the locker room which he stopped and did not defend, so on that aspect he agreed.

Listen, I know some thing’s happening right now are wildly inappropriate to some. I agree with some of you on several of those. But what we cannot do is limit free speech regardless of ideology or religion. Everyone is offended on both sides, the constant outrage is exhausting.

@KNOWITALL: I’m not outraged about this topic, just pointing out the possibilities as far as the kids go, and that there is supposed to be a separation of church and state, and that separation seems to be eroding now in our current political climate.

It’s a slippery slope, and if we’re going to advocate for praying for things, there may be some situations we may not be comfortable with (Satanic rituals or whatever) which we’d not be in a position to object to.

@KNOWITALL Sometimes people at work want to hold hands and pray after meetings. I shit you not. Not participating will “out” you as an atheist which makes you an unspoken pariah. That pressure is real.

@Blackwater_Park I work with mostly uber-liberal fanatic Democrats, I understand to a degree.

I can’t tell you how many parties and events I haven’t been invited to. Both sides have some work to do, obviously.

Reminds me of when Walmart attempted to establish themselves in Germany, and tried to impose their weird company culture on its employess.
You know, mandated morning gymnastics and “Walmart!” chants, forbidding employees to have intimate relations with each other, and mandating that employees rat each other out to management for breaches of these “rules”.
All the German workers were like “Was ist denn das für eine verquirlte Scheiße?”, and the courts had to step in and tell Walmart that they are not allowed to do that in Germany.

@jca the coach did not pray loudly. He made a very quite, personal prayer. He started off doing it by himself. Later some of his players asked to join him. He did not ask them to join, he did not coerce them to join. They respected him and they respected prayer. Because of the freedom to join or not, it was not a situation of the school or a teacher forcing children to do something they don’t want. So the separation of church and state is really meaningless, though the suppression of religious rights is front and center.

But an interesting thing hits me with some of the answers here. The respondents seem to worry that the children might feel coerced or shamed into joining, regardless of how they felt. Does that same worry apply to pushing transgenderism in schools? I believe it probably makes many students uncomfortable and some go along with it because they are afraid of being shamed if they do not. Where is the outrage over that?

@seawulf575 “The respondents seem to worry that the children might feel coerced or shamed into joining, regardless of how they felt. Does that same worry apply to pushing transgenderism in schools? I believe it probably makes many students uncomfortable and some go along with it because they are afraid of being shamed if they do not…”

No student should be coerced or shamed into changing their gender to something it’s not. I completely agree. If someone is a CIS male, they shouldn’t be pressured into becoming a trans woman if they’re not a trans woman.

@Blackwater_Park It shouldn’t matter if you want to join or not. You are a person…you are allowed to have your opinions.

Look at a conservative on these pages. You get ridiculed, insulted, attacked, and ganged up on if you don’t go along with the favored narrative. Isn’t that what all this is about? Worrying about the favored narrative? As a conservative on these pages, I don’t let what those that disagree with me have to say about me. I’m comfortable with my beliefs.

But look at it this way: you say there is a large group of people that want to hold hands and pray after meetings and they tend to look at you like you are some outsider and therefore suspicious. But the coach started off praying alone. He wasn’t calling people together to pray. He wasn’t telling them that after the game they had to meet and pray. He was just praying and others decided to join him. Let’s put that in your situation. What would it be like for you if one person, after the meeting, took a moment to pray. Would that offend you? And if another person joined them, would that offend you? That is how this grew and it never got beyond personal choices.

I will tell you that I had a job once where there was a group that was very religious. I viewed them as almost cultish, but then I was young and cocky (I was 18). They kept wanting me to join their group and I kept demurring. But I was a happy person and enjoyed life. I was a threat and a challenge to them because of it. They fully believed you could not be happy without celebrating Jesus the way they did. I fully believed you could. At one point I had a girl from the group (one who had tried getting me to join) show up at my apartment, wanting to talk. She was at a point of questioning. She told me that she was supposed to be happy but really wasn’t and saw I was and wanted to know how that worked. I guess I corrupted her because she ended up leaving their group.

The point of that story is that if you have your standards, and you are comfortable with them, it shouldn’t really matter what others think of you. And sticking by your standards often leads to others seeing something in you that they want.

@seawulf575 I hate to tell you this but this but while I’m perfectly comfortable with being an atheist those around me are not. It does matter if they know. Some of them are higher up on the food chain and if I want to have a secure job, one I am considered for promotion you had better believe that sort of thing matters. My lips are fucking sealed and that sucks. It does not matter what you believe, if it’s contrary to those around you, it is detrimental to your future. That coach knew what he was doing. those that gathered around him are going to get special treatment, and you can take that to the bank.

@Blackwater_Park I’m sorry for your situation. But I guess I have to ask…why do you work at a place that doesn’t want you to be yourself or be able to speak your mind? I know this is a bit off topic, but I have to ask. I have worked for companies that wanted you to only voice their opinions. I didn’t. I figured if I couldn’t speak my mind (in a respectful way, of course), then I didn’t need to work for them. What I found was that many people came to respect that. Yes, I had some issues with some and some of those were above me. But I did my job well, I used good judgement in my decision making and that was enough.

As for the coach there was no evidence of special treatment for or against his players based on whether they prayed or not. That was looked for…hard. Because if there was, then the whole thing has an entirely different meaning. There wasn’t really any evidence of peer pressure or coercion. Again…same thing…it would have drastically changed the case and it was looked for hard. Everyone claims that sort of thing, but in a case like this, evidence of those behaviors would have been enough to close him down. Instead it went through many layers of court and got to the SCOTUS. Plain and simply, the school district felt nervous that some nut job would scream about separation of church and state and they didn’t want to deal with it. So they fired him. Hey! That goes right along with what you were saying, only it wasn’t the religious people that were the bad guys.

@seawulf575 It really does not matter what company policy is. Mine has all the woke, diversity and other stuff we are coming to expect. It’s who you are working with and what they believe that matters. I’m dead center in the bible belt. Like ground zero. People in the hills just outside of town handle snakes at church. I’m not kidding. You don’t need evidence to see or know that you will be treated differently. It’s simply a matter of fact. The coach may have had innocent intentions on the outside but inside this is petty virtue signaling and a way to identify those who are like-minded. Once that is known it’ll be very hard if not impossible for him to treat everyone as fairly as he did before. This is why you don’t talk about politics or religion at work if you can help it.

@seawulf575 Just curious, would you feel comfortable with an atheist president in the US? Do you trust atheists to help America be a better country?

@JLeslie Oh good question!

@Blackwater_Park We need to just swap jobs. :)

@KNOWITALL I’m generally on the same page with them when it comes to redneck chatter like fishing and guns and things with engines and stuff. I can fly under the radar with not being into the Jesus thing pretty well.

@Blackwater_Park Interestingly enough, it’s much the same for me, and people who are religious are thrilled to find each other. :)

Except for the many personal attacks some good arguments being made here.

I really think we can find better results without adding to the volumes of suffocating
rules, laws, codes and tic for tac destroy by filibuster that are being proposed here.

@JLeslie I’m not about religious or non-religious people in office. I go by the quality of the person. I have voted or both Democrats and Republicans in my time. I have no idea what religion most politicians claim to be. And I recognize that most times those that claim to be religious are doing so for show only. The way I see it, good people come in all shapes, sizes, sexes, and colors. And so do assholes. I’m quite certain there are good atheists as well as those I wouldn’t trust with a piggy bank.

I feel like the prayer one was fair enough. They did not find coercion in this particular case, which means the legal door is always open to practices that could be considered coercive.

The problem with the school funding law and the reason this case was decided the way it was, was that it used public money to fund private schools, and then put a religious test on it.

I am of a mind that all private schools should be denied public funding, even as a parent of a privately schooled child. Unfortunately there are too many interested parties, left and right, forcing this transfer of wealth on the citizenry for that to be a part of the conversation.

@gorrillapaws Re: out loud in public. Jesus said it would be better to pray privately in a closet than to make public display of faith. Odd that these “Christians” don’t often do what Christ advocates. But the opposite.

@Nomore_Tantrums I guess that would depend on the coach’s motives. Praying out loud is not a problem. Jesus had no problem with praying out loud. He also sent his disciples into the world to spread the teachings. His teachings tell us to sing praises to God. There are dozens of passages that tell us to spread the word loudly. But you are correct that he also told us to pray in private. But if you look at the context of those things, he is slamming the hypocrites who made a show out of their praying; those that are praying to make people think they are pious when they truly are not. But not everyone that prays in public is a hypocrite. So the issue then becomes whether the coach was praying only because he wanted people to notice him or if he was praying to give thanks to God.

Wonder where this will go.

https://patch.com/florida/miami/activist-asks-lead-satanic-prayer-fl-high-school-football-game?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=blasts&fbclid=IwAR1eQocJCq7xTXtQwVmctJ27p1UZJ6lo6giRoDxNhbhZEhtp1cjj2snTyMA

@canidmajor They can’t ALLOW him to pray on the 50 yard line exactly like the coach, it’s his RIGHT to do so.

It seems life is getting more and more complicated. What used be ‘live and let live’ is
becoming live my way or I’m going to cancel your!

@canidmajor What is really interesting on the case you just cited is that it really COULD be sued if the school district doesn’t say yes the right way. Here’s where I see the issue:

The coach just prayed. It is his right to do so. He didn’t ask permission, he just did it. The school board complained that he might be trying to coerce students by praying in the locker room. He agreed that might be misconstrued so he did it out in public, by himself initially and then joined by students of their own accord. When the school district fired him for praying, they violated his right to exercise his religious beliefs.

Now we have an atheist trying to make a point. He wants to pray to Satan. That in itself is perfectly acceptable. He could do it just as simply as the coach did. But he has already changed the game. He asked the school district for permission to do it. Now you have a school district in a position of having to reject him. For them to give permission for a specific religious demonstration, you really are violating the separation of church and state. You would now have a public institution demonstrating preference to one religion over others. They are actively agreeing to support one religious belief.

The school district is not allowed to dictate whether a person can pray in public or not. They CAN dictate that an employee cannot try to push their religious beliefs on others. But by being asked for this allowance, the school district is in a position that they cannot say yes. If they say yes, they are now taking sides on religion for a public, planned activity of prayer.