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Absolutely!
Can't afford to give the students any idea that they might "question authority."
They should all be taught to obey what our masters in black robes command.
No thinking allowed.
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Oh come one, Rob. There's a huge difference between following the law and thinking for onesself. And what student is thinking for himself when the coach says:
"I'm going to continue to do it, I couldn't care less what the Supreme Court says or does."
Does he sound like someone who espouses your notion of kids thinking for themselves?
I'm sure many are fine with it, and I'm not that bothered by it either, though I will say this- by the time these high school students are 14 years or older, if religious prayer is important to them and their community, whose responsibility is it to teach them how to pray and to convey the importance of doing so: their public school or their place of religious worship? If the latter, why is this coach so insistent he be the one to make it happen (see "I" above)? Yeah, Barry's "idiot" and "fired" and "edukashen" is over the top, but so is your notion that prayer by the Lincoln County football team is an exercise in kids thinking for themselves.
By all means give the kids a real education about the Constitution and the First Amendment.
And then the kids would know that prayers in local school locker rooms have nothing to do with "trumping" the U.S. Constitution because the First Amendment establishment clause was never about any such thing to begin with.
The purpose of the establishment clause of the First Amendment was to make sure the federal government would neither establish an official national religion (as England had done) nor interfere with the authority of individual states to establish their own official state religions. Some of the states already had official state religions at the time of ratification (including Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire) and they continued to have them for some 30 years or so afterward. The first federal Congress pointedly rejected James Madison’s proposal to address the question of state establishment of religion.
The kids would also learn that the phrase "wall of separation between Church and State" which is commonly offered up as a "Constitutional" principle is nowhere to be found in that document.
It was lifted from a letter that had been written by Thomas Jefferson 10 years after the First Amendment’s ratification by one Justice Hugo Black ( a former member of the KKK) in a 1947 Supreme Court case to rationalize substituting his own personal preferences for the actual Constitution. Black claimed that Jefferson “played a leading role” in the drafting and adopting of the First Amendment.
In point of fact, Jefferson had nothing whatsoever to do with it. He was not a member of the First Congress that drafted the First Amendment and sent it to the states for ratification nor was he a member of the Virginia General Assembly that voted to ratify it.
Furthermore, the Jefferson letter that Black lifted the phrase from was not about state establishments of religion but rather an explanation of why Jefferson did not issue presidential declarations of Thanksgiving and fasting as Presidents Washington and Adams had done.
Who brought up Jefferson?
Gilbert, I truly love how you act like everything should be exactly like it was in 1789. While you are correct that the First amendment alone doesn't prohibit state governments from engaging in religious practices, the fourteenth amendment does apply it to states with the equal protection clause:
nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Exercise in the religion of one's choosing, or lack thereof, that's liberty, Gilbert. If this coach doesn't want to be bound by the limitations of government, perhaps he should teach at a non-government school.
And like it or not, the Founding fathers not only created the establishment clause but they established a Supreme Court to interpret the law. Disagree with Justice Black all you like, but he and the other five Justices were well within their authority to declare school prayer unconstitutional. The founding fathers knew the laws and practices of the land would evolve over time, they created a constitution that allowed for that. They didn't want or expect the nation to remain stagnant in 1789. It sure seems like you do.
My post wasn't a respone to you JC, it was a response to bb's crack about "trumping" the Constitution.
A few more things:
The Hugo Black Supreme Court case wasn't about school prayer.
There is nothing in the text of the Constitution that says the Supreme Court is the ultimate authority on the meaning of the document. That idea was dreamed up by the court itself in Marbury vs Madison.
The 14th Amendment was never legally ratified by 3/4 of the states as the Constitution requires. A number of southern states voted against it and in response the federal government delcared them to be "military districts" and proclaimed they would not be allowed representation in Congress unless they passed it. The federal government had no Constitutional authority to do that as a means of extorting the vote it wanted from those states.
Engel v Vitale was a court case about achool prayer, the majority opinion was delivered by Black, and he quoted the "wall of separation" line from Jefferson, so I assumed that was the one you referred to. Now that I see the 1947 date, I realize it wasn't. What case were you refeerring to?
You have a point about judicial review, but the founders did mean for the court to be a check and balance on the other branches, so it logically follows that it could question acts of Congress as constitutional or not and provide a remedy. Remember, the court doesn't simply meet up and sort through new laws at whim; it responds to grievances by citizens and calls for a remedy. I truly find it odd that right wingers are so antagonistic towards the Supreme Court which might be one of the last vessels of limited government. But we'll remember your point next time the Court rules that gun ownership is an individual right and not merely a collective one.
The case was Everson vs Board of Education in 1947.
As for the Supreme Court being the last vessel of limited government, I don't think so.
More often than not, they have been an enabler of vast expansions of government power.
One of the most egregious examples of that is the notion they dreamed regarding "interstate commerce". They invented the idea the government not only had authority to regulate actual interstate commerce transactions but also the authority to regulate anything that could "have an effect" on interstate commerce. Which, of course is license for government to stick it's nose into virtually everything on earth that can be claimed to relate to any sort of economic activity.
That constituted a vast and unennumerated expansion of government power.
This is the kind of thing I would expect from idiots that never played the game....much less live your life with religion and class. I played for the man your calling an idiot for teaching young men to play a GAME and realize there is more to life than football. I am positive the person who wrote this blog is a real stand up socialist. Deal with real issues ...not prayers after a football practice...and if you don't like it...then stay the hell out Lincoln county..us Hicks seem to be fine prayer....
