The six conservatives on the Supreme Court, who purport to revere the Constitution, have a funny way of ignoring the parts of the document that go against their conclusions. We know of no other way to rationalize their blithe ruling letting a high school football coach lead post-game prayers on the 50-yard line.
Joe Kennedy’s religious expression, say the majority, should be treated like any other type of private speech — given wide latitude by his public employers. Instead, Kennedy — who’d previously led locker room prayers and other outward, on-the-clock attempts to share the Gospel with kids — got fired.
Understandably. The same First Amendment that protects freedom of speech and free exercise of religion explicitly forbids government “respecting an establishment of religion,” which is to say promoting a creed or even faith itself. Public schools, where teachers and coaches act in loco parentis, are the most crucial places to bar pressuring, proselytization and other such behavior by those on the payroll.
