Free-Range Religion in American Public Schools. Three days after having buried the right to abortionits six conservative justices of the Supreme Court of UNITED STATES have, against the advice of their three progressive colleagues, invalidated the dismissal of Joseph Kennedy. This American football coach who had supervised the Bremerton high school teams for seven years, near Seattle (northwest), had been fired for prayers on the ground.
“A government entity wanted to punish an individual for a brief, quiet, and personal religious practice,” “the Constitution does not mandate or condone this kind of discrimination,” the judge wrote Neil Gorsuch on their behalf.
Battle of Amendments
After each game, the coach had taken to kneeling in prayer in the middle of the field, sometimes joined by his players. He sometimes led locker room prayers before or after games. In 2015, the school authorities had asked him to abstain, relying on an article by the first amendment to the constitution which prohibits the State, and its employees, from encouraging the “establishment” of a religion, that is to say from financing it or encouraging its practice.
As he refused, they had not renewed his contract. He then took legal action, relying on another provision of the First Amendment which guarantees freedom of religion and expression. These two clauses are regularly the subject of disputes and the Supreme Court had until recently held the crest line. But its conservative majority, solidified by Donald Trump, now tilts the balance in favor of religious circles.
In May, she felt that Boston City Hall should let a Christian group display its flag on City Hall. Last week, she ruled that the state of Maine could not exclude denominational schools from a public aid scheme.
