The praying Bremerton, Washington, coach won a great victory in the U.S. Supreme Court this week. But to get that win, he lost his way.
The high court ruled Monday that former Bremerton High School assistant football coach Joseph Kennedy was entitled to offer a “short, private, personal prayer” on the field after games and that the school district had discriminated against him when it tried to restrict him.
This ruling sounds reasonable, as who is against short, private, personal prayer? The problem is that the only part of the phrase “short, private, personal prayer” that is accurate to what was going on in Bremerton in the fall of 2015 is “prayer.”
We know this because it all played out here. One piece of evidence in the court record was a Seattle Times article from Oct. 15, 2015.
It was an account of a news conference Kennedy gave before the team’s big homecoming game against Centralia. “Football coach vows to pray ” was the print headline. It describes – in Kennedy’s own words – how he was inspired to start holding midfield prayers with students after he saw an evangelical Christian movie called “Facing the Giants,” in which a losing team finds God and goes on to win the state championship.