History may well record that Roe was just the first domino in a row of right-wing extremist positions to be written into law. The earth hasn’t stopped shaking yet from the seismic event of Roe being overturned Friday, when Monday the court just handed down another controversial ruling, this time establishing a constitutional right to pray in schools which didn’t exist before. The Supreme Court is on quite a roll here. The sad part of it is, that what constitutes “religion” has warped significantly in recent years.
This is part of the white, faux-Christian backlash that you’re going to see more of. Brace for it. One third of the Supreme Court was appointed by Donald Trump and a majority of the court was appointed by Republican presidents who did not win the popular vote, so tyranny of the minority, here we come, on a bobsled. New York Times:
The case concerned Joseph Kennedy, an assistant coach at a public high school in Bremerton, Wash., near Seattle. For eight years, Mr. Kennedy routinely offered prayers after games, with students often joining him. He also led and participated in prayers in the locker room, a practice he later abandoned and did not defend in the Supreme Court.
In 2015, after an opposing coach told the principal at Mr. Kennedy’s school that he thought it was “pretty cool” that Mr. Kennedy was allowed to pray on the field, the school board instructed Mr. Kennedy not to pray if it interfered with his duties or involved students. The two sides disagreed about whether Mr. Kennedy complied. […]
The two sides offered starkly different accounts of what had happened in Mr. Kennedy’s final months, complicating the Supreme Court’s task. Mr. Kennedy said he sought only to offer a brief, silent and solitary prayer little different from saying grace before a meal in the school cafeteria. The school board responded that the public nature of his prayers and his stature as a leader and role model meant that students felt forced to participate, whatever their religion and whether they wanted to or not.
Over the last 60 years, the Supreme Court has rejected prayer in public schools, at least when it was officially required or part of a formal ceremony like a high school graduation. As recently as 2000, the court ruled that organized prayers led by students at high school football games violated the First Amendment’s prohibition of government establishment of religion.
“The delivery of a pregame prayer has the improper effect of coercing those present to participate in an act of religious worship,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.
I didn’t used to have a problem with the phrase, “one nation under God” until this evangelical wingnut prosperity consciousness God began to rear its ugly head. I want nothing to do with that “God” or with the people who worship Him/It.
Fewer people are attending church now or identifying as Christians than ever before in the history of this country. There’s a good reason for that. Christianity has always had sects, but the sects that exist in the religion bearing that name in this day and age frankly frighten a lot of people. Fundamentalist Christianity, which seems to be the brand that the SCOTUS justices who are wreaking all this havoc favor, openly discriminates against women and the LGBT community.
Mr. Kennedy was never disciplined for offering silent, private prayers, the judge, Milan D. Smith Jr., wrote last year. Instead, the judge wrote of one game, Mr. Kennedy “prayed out loud in the middle of the football field” just after it finished, “surrounded by players, members of the opposing team, parents, a local politician and members of the news media with television cameras recording the event, all of whom had been advised of Kennedy’s intended actions through the local news and social media.”
This makes it pretty clear that people were forced to participate in religious activity whether they wanted to or not. It wasn’t silent or voluntary, it was out there, in your face.
I don’t know what is going to happen to the credibility of this court but so far things are not looking up, to put it mildly.
The coach has always been free to pray on the football field. What he doesn’t have, and should never have, is the “right” to make others pray with him.
Coming soon will be schools (yes, public schools) allowed to ENFORCE prayer at the beginning of school (if not each class when kids get to middle and high schools), as well as forced participation in the Pledge of Allegiance. On the latter, prior SCOTUS decisions holding that due to certain (even Christian) sects holding that the pledge was “idoltry” will be swept away.
It all makes me sick inside. Also, we will find that this Court will make (referring back to my remark about the Pledge) wind up shaping things so that as with people, some religions are more equal than others. Christianity, or rather KKKristianity will have first class status and anything other than these asshole’s version of Christianity will be relegated to second (or worse) status.
Despite all kinds of evidence they will ignore the FACT that the lion’s share of our founders were quite wary of having any state establishment of religion. Yes, some were Christian but many of our most admired founders were not, at least in the sense the nut-jobs want to portray them. Instead, many like Washington were Deists believing in a Divine Creator but not exactly spouting off Christianity or wearing it on their sleeve. Attending church for example as Washington sometimes did was more a matter of adhering to convention and was in his time rather unremarkable. Unlike say when visiting a Masonic Lodge and being handed the Gavel (he was never actually Master of a Lodge) to preside over some function or deliver remarks he never took the pulpit in that church in DC to read out scripture or deliver remarks/a sermon! So there’s that.
The way I see it these Christofacists are signaling to our country and the world they are not just ready and willing but EAGER to put their stamp of approval in the form of Precedent on the efforts of the American ChrisTaliban to make this a “Christian” nation. And woe to anyone who doesn’t make it clear they are on board!
All that garment rending before collapsing on their fainting couch hysteria from “Christians” about secret elements trying to create a U.S. controlled by Shariah Law was pure projection! It’s exactly what they’ve been envisioning for their fucked up, almost exact opposite of what Jesus actually taught version of Christianity being law of the land.
Colin Kapernick. Enuf said……but he was black.
A follower of Islam has offered to teach the Call to Prayer on twitter. I think ALL religious practitioners should follow his lead. Surely the Agnostics and Atheists have something to add as well. Let’s go all in on this and bog down all playing fields, games, etc. with this b.s. I have had enough of x-tians and the crap they bring to society.