I'm a huge fan of the ACLU normally, but they're going to far in this case. I'll argue the necessity for the seperation of church and state until I'm blue in the face, but my understanding of the meaning of the seperation of church and state is that government institutions (like public schools) aren't allowed to impose religion on their constiuents. However, this is the land of the free and as such government institutions should also not be allowed to require their constituents to refrain from the practice of religion. If the coach had asked his players to pray then he'd be in the wrong, if he'd asked them to pray and then benched them if they didn't he would absolutely in the wrong. However, he can not be asked not to engage in prayer (silently) when it's already going on.
Maybe it's a fine line, but it's not at all a blurry one, you've either crossed it or not corssed it and this coach definitely didn't cross it.
However, there's another line, one that doesn't allow the school district to prohibit it's employees from practicing religion (of any type) so long as it doesn't interfere with their duties and they don't try to impose it on their students. That line, in this case, has definitely been crossed.
The End of Freedom in America?
According to the New Jersey ACLU legal director, Marcus Borden has fostered a "destructive environment" for students. What did Borden, a high school football coach in East Brunswick, N.J., and a recipient of the national Caring Coach of the Year award, do to create such a "destructive" environment?
He bowed his head -- silently. Sometimes he knelt down on one knee -- silently. Coach Borden wasn't attempting to pray with his football players, nor was he leading them in prayer. He was showing silent respect for their longstanding pre-game tradition by bowing his head.
But the forces of political correctness have gotten so absurd that even the most obscure, non-verbal expressions are targeted for censorship if religion is even remotely involved.
Yet as a student athletic trainer who worked with Borden during his first year as a coach at East Brunswick remarked, "The tradition of student-initiated prayer goes back many, many years. I think with all that is wrong in our schools today, gun violence, bullying, promiscuity, etc., that the energy being spent on Marcus Borden bowing his head and taking a knee is a waste. Here is a man trying to support the youth in his care and be a positive role model and all these administrative yahoos can worry about is his presence in a room with his players while they pray. It is time people stopped obsessing over the positive messages a coach is trying to send and start worrying about the real problems in school today." Indeed, Borden has been recognized for his efforts to positively impact young people with the Power of Influence Award, given only to deserving high school football coaches for positively impacting their players, schools and communities.
Our schools are in a deplorable state, and our young people are surrounded by dangers on all sides -- from premarital sex, school shootings and drug and alcohol abuse to low literacy standards and a lack of understanding about the difference between right and wrong. In light of this, you'd think the schools would be grateful for a teacher who serves as a positive, moral role model for young people. But when religion is involved, even heroes like Borden find themselves under fire.
Pre-game, student-led prayer has been a regular part of football for many years. In fact, East Brunswick High's practice of player-initiated, pre-game prayer has been in effect for over 25 years, with more than 2,000 former East Brunswick football players opting to voluntarily pray before taking the field on game days. The prayers are a simple, solemn request for safety and honor on the field: "Dear Lord, please guide us today in our quest in our game. Please let us represent our families and our communities well. Lastly, please guide our players and opponents so that they can come out of this game unscathed, no one is hurt."
But after some parents reportedly complained about a prayer that was offered at a pre-game pasta dinner, the practice became a target for official school censure. Quick to jump on the "thou-shalt-not-offend" bandwagon, school officials passed a policy in October 2005 prohibiting representatives of the school district from participating in student-initiated prayer.
But school officials went so far as to order Borden, who also teaches Spanish, to stand still rather than bending a knee and silently bowing his head while his players recited pre-game prayers. The penalty for disobeying was disciplinary action, including the loss of his job as a coach and tenured teacher. School officials justified their actions by insisting that while student athletes have the constitutionally protected right to pray, that privilege does not extend to coaches, who are public employees and whose participation would violate the so-called "separation of church and state."
Borden responded by offering his resignation in protest. But after thinking further about the matter, he changed his mind and rescinded his resignation so he could continue coaching. At the same time, believing that he was taking "a stand for every high school football coach in America," Borden also filed a lawsuit asking the courts to review the school's prayer policy.
Although school officials in this instance were lacking in common sense, the federal district court was not. In siding with Coach Borden, Judge Dennis Cavanaugh ruled that the school district had violated Borden's constitutional rights to free speech, freedom of association and academic freedom when they prohibited him from silently bowing his head and "taking a knee" with his players while they engaged in student-initiated, student-led, nonsectarian pre-game prayers.
But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit recently overturned Cavanaugh's decision and ruled that a football coach may not silently bow his head or "take a knee" with his team as a gesture of respect for student-led prayers prior to a game.
Borden's case is being closely watched by athletic directors across the country who were instructed to cease praying with their players. According to Grant Teaff, executive director of the American Football Coaches Association, more than 50 percent of high school football coaches nationwide have engaged in team prayer. Furthermore, if this ruling is allowed to stand, it could very well mean that high school teachers across the United States will have no free speech or academic freedom rights.
We have become a politically correct society -- one that stands for uniformity, not diversity. If someone might be offended, freedom of speech is erased.
But if all freedoms hang together, then they will fall together, too. And if America continues on its present course, it will mean the end of freedom.
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What if the coach was a Muslim. Come on, you'd be up in arms against his "right to religion." The religious need to get a life right here on planet earth. I don't want to be subjected to some coach's nonsense about praying before a high school game. He can pray at home - it works just as well with God. The game is so important. Too much time is wasted on sports. School is for learning. Many kids don't make the team and feel inadequate. The coach thinks he is George Washington crossing the Delaware. What a laugh. A bow and a knee! Who pays this self-righteous person a salary? We do.
The Declaration of Independence used language that invoked God. Why? Because to overcome the King's God-given powers, one had to invoke an even "higher" power. Notably, this fancy language was deleted from the constitution itself. Ever read the document itself? Enough Bible beaters existed then as now. Kids need protection from religiousity. Witness the child custody case in Texas or the Priest abuse scandals or eve the holy wars. The judge ruled correctly.
Science is the answer. Freedom of religion for personal and private use is not under threat.
This is no loss of freedom. The players could pray on their own.
Real loss of freedom is the government not allowing people to control what goes on at their business, like smoking, or to alter their consciousness as they see fit or to do scientific experiments at home, or to be a prostitute...etc etc.....religion and its insanity have lost Americans lots of Freedom .
Science brings more Freedom than religion.
believe what you want and keep it to yourself, but NEVER use it to make public policy.
Sorry, Mr. Whitehead,
-- But if Christianity really worked (remember, it has been our dominating religion, often by fiat, for 1,600 years) then there wouldn't BE gun violence and bullying and 'promiscuity' in schools.
Obviously, Mr. Whitehead must have never played high school football. Where I grew up, whatever the coach did in your presence, it was considered de rigueur for the players to do likewise. In a public school, no matter how innocent the coach thought himself, this was clearly against the law. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, especially for a teacher.
There's a lot of issues that I would place ahead of this in the "The End of Freedom in America" category. The whole issue as presented reeks of the misplaced logic of false controversy.
is the coach receiving tax-payer income? if so, then he's in the wrong. if not, then whatever. no need to talk about how immoral and terrible our youth are.
Three words: "flag lapel pin." Two more: "Islamofascist murderer." Another two: "homicide bomber." And another two: "intelligent design."
Suffice to say that political correctness isn't confined to the political left.
I get the impression that you are supporting a coach who is willing to "cheat" his way around laws that he full well knows govern this land. In my opinion this is not the kind of leadership that I would want my kids exposed to. In what other ways does he justify cheating? Maybe because God told him it was alright when he was down on his knee?
It's a sport my friend, a test of skills. It is not a religious experience. Take it for what is, a way that children can have some fun in their spare time and learn teamwork. Nothing more.
"Cheat"? What is he cheating about? There isn't a law that says you cannot pray in a locker room or at school. You are so full of it. I support the coach he is doing the right thing. You are a sheep being led down a scary path. Open your eyes.
Yes. Cheat!
If he is a teacher with a license then he knows the laws of the land. He knows he should not participate in any way to help or hinder student initiated prayer.
The fact that he is in the room on bended knee and that he is suing to challenge the law is enough evidence to suggest that what his intent is.
The key to this article for me is that over 50% of coaches admit to running prayers before games. Holy crap. Maybe we need to just end team sports in America. They don't contribute to life long health for most people anyway, so what is their point other than ego?
This author is confused. Freedom does not dictate all members of a team taking part in a 'voluntary' prayer. The social pressure this presents is repressive in the extreme. It is the polar opposite of freedom.
Leave prayer to the individual and leave it out of schools. Period.
In 1962, I was one of the unfortunates who were in the last age cohort of Houston, Texas high school seniors who were subjected to official morning Christian school prayer.
We all had to stand and bow our heads as morning Christian prayer was spewed forth from the classroom speaker. Our teacher scowled if she observed any student not obediently complying.
Folks, religion does not belong in the public school classroom or at school functions. If a parent is concrned about his or her child's exposure to faith-based belief, then either parochial schools or weekend religious services and training are the answer. Tax-supported educational systems are not the venue for religious proselytizing.
"Our schools are in a deplorable state, ..."
No, they're not. They're doing exactly what they've been designed to do: turn human beings into automatons, into corporate cogs, into nonthinking, noncritical, nonjudgmental fungi.
Please take time to read John Taylor Gatto's seminal masterwork "The Underground History of American Education." Read it. Read it now. And then--wake the hell up. We aren't educating our kids--we're indoctrinating them.
We lost our freedom long, long ago.
Try being an free-thinking youth (or just someone with a different religious perspective than the majority) at a a school where the teachers and coaches give tacit support to religious cheer-leading. I don't care if he bowed his head, clasped his hands, or did the hokey-pokey - ANY display of support for religion is off grounds.
Oh, did I mention I'm a teacher?
"Try being an free-thinking youth (or just someone with a different religious perspective than the majority)"
Exactly. We are practicing Pagans. My oldest is 8 and already he is experiencing problems in school. Amazingly, his teacher took it upon herself to "correct" him one day when he referred to god as "she", explaining that god is male, not female. Also, his class was assigned a holiday project last December as part of their "Multicultural" program. Each child was instructed to decorate a holiday bag with his or her religious symbols and then give a presentation to the class explaining how s/he celebrates their "special day". His classmates celebrate Christmas, Hanukah, and Diwali. (There were no identified athiests or agnostics.) We celebrate Yule (i.e., the Winter Solstice). My son was told Yule is essentially Christmas and was encouraged make a Santa Claus bag so he wouldn't "confuse" his classmates. How's THAT for discrimination?
I think that is a great example of the typical discrimination that happens in schools.
Sad, but true. What did you do to address that BS?
No you did not. Are you? Or are you just an employee of a school. Vast difference, you know.
Would you fight so vociferously if the coach had 'taken a knee' while the students chanted Buddahist mantras, or if they had gotten on their knees, faced Mecca and prayed to Allah?
Are you kidding? Of course they wouldn't have. They would have locked, loaded, gotten out their pitchforks and banjos and then sued the living crap out of anything that moved all the while marching back and forth in front of the school chanting "God hates fags. God hates America, You are all going to burn in hell."
It's not the freedom of prayer or political correctness in our schools that a recking havoc on our school system it's the drugging of our children with mind altering drugs that so many children are on, supposing to keep them from disrupting the class, we didn't have this before the 80's. People should become aware of the side effects of the drugs. Google drugging of children and find out what it does to them and how these prescription drugs are being used and sold to other students. You will be want it to stop. We are commenting a break down of our society with these drugs. We have to stop this ASAP.
The big drug companies saw a real market and sold it to schools to make their jobs easier.
"Furthermore, if this ruling is allowed to stand, it could very well mean that high school teachers across the United States will have no free speech or academic freedom rights."
You really hit bottom by attempting to draw this conclusion, John. What you mean of course is that teachers in PUBLIC schools will have to abide by Constitutional guarantees that protect ALL Americans. There is an inordinate amount of protected freedom in this country for worship of belief systems as part of an educational curriculum... but NOT in schools that are funded by taxpayers... and you know the reason why.
If you want your child to adhere to a religious belief... if you want your children's school staff to include worship of those beliefs in any of the school's official curriculum, then send your child to a faith-based school... even if that faith-based school doesn't have a football program. And PLEASE, do not ask me to fund your religious school through taxation.
There is a certain tyranny in your line of logic that was specifically addressed by those who wrote our Constitution... in an attempt to escape the very real consequences of what you demand. That is the reason that SEPARATION was deemed to be vitally important to the success of this nation.
You are free to get your hand out of my pocket and go to church to pray.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/26/us/26atheist.html
It's heartening that those commenting here haven't been flummoxed by Mr. Whitehead's specious argumentation. He has a long record of championing issues dear to the hearts of the extreme right wing, as does the organization he founded, the Rutherford Institute. His primary premise in arguing his extremist views is to always play the victim, as he does here.
Apparently, it's getting harder and harder to fool even some of the people some of the time.
So the ACLU is off base because the message was being sent obscurely, and it is a shame that the students will now miss out on such a positive message?
I have not heard the details of this case from any other source. But you manage to make the ACLU look good with the self-contradictory nature of your attack on them. School officials should not be involved in religious practices that might ostracize some students. Prayers fall under that heading. If students want to pray let them.
If student prayers require the involvement of a teacher or coach who has to support them while denying they are doing so, then maybe the student tradition deserves to die.
Actually we are becoming a less politically correct society. There was a time when it would have been too unpopular to point out that it was wrong for teachers to be involved in praying with their students, because there were too many christians who felt they should be able to merge government and religion. Now people are more willing to stand up against this.
But by the same token if the coach wants to pray, let him. We can't allow one tpe of prayer, and then forbid others.
However, if the coach had been LEADING the kids in a prayer, and forcing them to do so, then I would have a problem with it.....
Do you mean that the coach should be able to pray on his own time, or that he should be able to pray while representing the school in his role as leader of the team? As far as the former goes, then of course he should, and noone has ever suggested he shouldn't. When he is representing the school it is a different matter.
Students don't have any difficulty recognizing that coaches and teachers are there as official authority figures representing the school. There is no reason why other people should pretend not to realize that as well.
Why can't he pray while representing the school? The students can pray while representing the school. Members of the House and Senate of the US legislative branch pray at the start of every new session. That's certainly while representing the entire US population. Where's the problem here???
With things like this going on it is no wonder that our kids are out there killing each other, using drugs (and I am not talking about marijuana), and have blatant disrespect for everything and everybody. It is true that our freedoms are slowly and methodically being torn from us and it seems there is nothing we can or will do about it. We need to get back to teaching kids respect, honor, honesty nd our "freedoms' that we are supposed to be afforded as Americans. Until then, we will keep reading how the kids of America are tearing it and each other down.
HuffPost's Pick
Religion belongs in a religious institution, not a publicly funded institution. The whole point of the separation of church and state is to protect both. We are a nation of diverse belief and no public institution should impose religious practice on another citizen.
While I'm sure your former coach is a heck of a guy, praying before the game is imposing his belief on those kids. Asking the whole team to do that puts unnecessary pressure on any of those kids that may not share the same belief as the rest of the team or the coach. Teenagers are very susceptible to peer pressure and bullying. If a kid had refused to pray then how would the team and/or coach treated him? The coach should have known better or gone to work at a private religious school.
"While I'm sure your former coach is a heck of a guy, praying before the game is imposing his belief on those kids."
So, ask the kids which god this coach was praying to... Allah, Christ, Zeus?
As a former restaraunt manager (who happens to be a non-Christian), I would occasionally find myself approaching a table before I realized that the family was saying grace. OUT OF RESPECT for their beliefs (even though they did not reflect my own), I would bow my own head as I waited for them to finish. Do we know that this was not what this coach was doing?
So if we're both about to get onto an airplane, and I pray, that affects you? Or how about if we were working at the same location, and we were about to give a presentation, and I prayed beforehand, that would make YOUR life harder?
I'm not saying that the schools need to enforce a particular type of prayer, or even ANY prayer, but if the students are allowed to pray before the game (which they are, the SCOTUS said so many years ago) then why not the coach, as long as neither of them are trying to FORCE other students to do so.....
In the example you give, are you my boss, and do I have to wonder if my failure to pray with you will affectg my performance reviews? Otherwise it is hard to see the relevancy of your examples in this particular case.
Or do you really think there is not a difference between the relationship of two students and of a student and a coach?
If I'm your boss, and I'm praying, but not forcing you to pray with me, once again, how does this affect you????
I do not believe that the article said that the coach was praying with the footlball team. I believe it did say that he took a knee and bowed his head silently.
Separation of church and state does not exist in the U S Constitution. It does exist in a letter sent by John Madison, I think.
I do not believe that this coach was "imposing his belief on those kids."
The phrase a "Wall of separation between church and state" comes in a letter by Jefferson explaining what the 1st Amendment means. The Supreme Court had generally taken Jefferson to be correct as to what was intended.
Is there really a religion that requires praying with someone to involve more than simply taking a knee, and bowing ones head silently as prayers are being recited (or for that matter other people taking a new and bowing silently). Otherwise it sounds like the coach was praying with the kids.
The fact that supporters of the coaches behavior feel the need to dissemble about what he was doing is a good indication of the integrity of the defense of the behavior. Behavior that has to be described with a wink, or with parsing that is transparent nonsense is generally not behavior that should be defended.
Actually, the letter was sent by Jefferson, not Madison. Either way, you are entirely correct!
What a specious bit of misdirection. IF you know enough about this subject to recognize that a letter exists explaining the separation of church and state, then you should know that the SCOTUS has accepted that explanation and has interpreted the constitution to have a separation of church and state.
You are trying to make wishful thinking reality.
You can take your argument and wrap it up in pretty paper and put a bow on it and it will still be a lump of coal.
Posted April 27, 2008 | 01:38 AM (EST)