In the case of separation of religion and state, judges ruled that school officials could express their religiosity, contradicting a long history of cases reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court over limiting religious activities in public education.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a public school made the mistake of punishing a football coach for praying after his team’s games.
According to the resolution, Joseph Kennedy’s actions are protected by the constitutional right to religious expression.
The school argued that prayers by the coach and officer kneeling in the middle of the field could compel students of different faiths or atheists to participate in a Christian religious act.
The case was considered an important test of the separation of religion and state in the United States.
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By 6 to 3, the Conservative majority court ruled that the school violated Kennedy’s “right to express personal religion. [a Constituição] obliged to suppress religious expression even if it allows secular speech”.
“The Constitution neither mandates nor tolerates this kind of discrimination,” Judge Neil Gorsuch said in the text justifying the votes in support of the football coach’s actions.
Recent History of the Courtread more below) It was to prevent the interference of religious practices in the activities of the state.
Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who voted against, wrote that “the decision was particularly misguided, as it increased the religious rights of a school representative who voluntarily accepted public employment, and the limits of such a duty.”
Kennedy came up with the idea of praying after his team’s games after watching TV. face giants (Facing Giants, in free translation).
The 2006 film follows a coach at a small religious academy who leads his team to a state football championship after he preaches Christian values, including prayer, to his players.
At the time, Kennedy was considering becoming a football coach at a high school in Bremerton, a city near Seattle, Washington, although he had little experience in the sport.
His wife studied at schools in the area and was offered to him based on his experience as a U.S. Marine with whom he occasionally joked.
He took the job and prayed for the next seven years on the field after matches—sometimes alone, sometimes with players—seemingly with little attention or discussion.
‘School approval’
That changed after a game in September 2015, when an opposing coach told the Bremerton headmaster about the prayers.
The school informed Kennedy that the actions could be interpreted as a religious endorsement of the institution; this contrasts with the long history of litigation by the US Supreme Court regarding the limitation of religious activities in public education.
Kennedy refused to follow the school’s orders and caught the media attention with crowds of spectators gathered around the coach on the field. The school decided to take him on leave.
At the end of his term, instead of trying to renew his one-year contract with the school, he sued the school district for violating his constitutional right to freedom of religion and toured the country to talk about his case.
And so began a six-year battle in the courts involving various aspects of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution—protecting freedom of speech and religious worship, but also prohibiting state imposition of religion.
In the Supreme Court, Kennedy’s attorney argued that he was an ordinary citizen who wished he could express his personal religious beliefs after completing his official coaching duties.
The lawyer said the Bremerton school district punished the coach for exercising his rights in violation of his constitutional protections.
The school’s legal representative objected that Kennedy’s actions were much more than private prayers – they were public group demonstrations held on school property that could have a compelling effect on students and athletes of different religious faiths.
The Supreme Court’s record was in support of limitations
Drawing boundaries like this is repetitive for Supreme Court judges. Complex issues are covered, including constitutional rights and protections.
In 2000, a 6-3 majority of the Supreme Court ruled that student-led prayer before a football game broadcast over the school’s sound system was an unconstitutional endorsement of the government’s religion.
In 1992, a small majority of 5 to 4 decided that a religiously directed prayer at a public school graduation was inherently coercive and therefore unconstitutional.
One of the most important cases in this regard is the 1971 “Lemon v Kurtzman” case, which constituted a three-part test of the constitutionality of a law.
First, laws must have a “secular legislative purpose”. Second, legislation cannot support or inhibit religion. And finally, the government cannot be “overly concerned with religion.”
The increasingly conservative court abandoned the “Lemon test” in favor of laws that allow and even support religious expression – and the court’s decision in this case makes that move clear.
Judge Sotomayor said the ruling followed a “dangerous way of forcing states to engage in religion and jeopardizing our rights”.
Conservative advocates of religious freedom are calling for just such a move.
“It is a right to bring the deepest and most important truths into public life,” said Lori Windham, senior adviser to the Becket Fund for Religious Freedom.
– This text was published at https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/internacional-61960267.
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source: Noticias
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