Ex-high school football coach still fighting five years after he was fired for praying on field

Fox News ^ | February 1, 2020 | Yael Halon

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Former Washington state high school football coach Joe Kennedy lost his job more than five years ago for silently praying on the field after each game, but his ongoing unemployment and an extended legal battle are not enough to deter the former Marine from his fight for faith.

While coaching at Bremerton High School, Kennedy began kneeling alone in a silent, 15-second prayer at the 50-yard line at the conclusion of every game. He was suspended and later fired in 2015 for refusing to stop the public practice.

Kennedy, a retired Marine Corps gunnery sergeant who did a combat tour during Operation Desert Storm, launched an aggressive legal battle, claiming that the Bremerton school district violated his constitutional rights of free expression and religious freedom.

"The First Amendment really means a lot to me," Kennedy told "America Reports" on Monday, "and it is really terrible today in America that somebody can be fired just for expressing their faith. So I am just fighting so that no one else ever has to go through this and doesn’t have to choose between their job and their faith."

Kennedy's five-year legal battle has had little success in federal court. The Supreme Court also declined to take his case last year, but the self-described "fighter" and his attorney hope to "get him back on the sidelines coaching as soon as possible" with an appeal.

"Every time I took the oath of enlistment it really meant something to me," he told Fox News' Sandra Smith. "Supporting and defending the Constitution, it makes my hair stand up just today even saying it, and I am a fighter. I have always been a fighter.

[KDF48]

Put him on the supreme court rather than in front of it.
Those who have dishonored the Constitution need to be dethroned from upholding it.

[Steve_Seattle]

I remember at the time that some of the other teachers at the school - in an apparent effort to mock Kennedy - invited some goofily-dressed "satanists" to show up at games and demand "equal time." I believe most or all of the "satanists" were not even students at the school.

Kennedy's prayer sessions occurred after the games, were not mandatory, and no one ever claimed that players who didn't participate suffered any sort of penalty or different treatment. The school administration's argument seemed to be that for a teacher to publicly identify as a Christian was a violation of the 1st Amendment, and the State Supreme Court (a bunch of repulsive old animals) upheld the district.

[IgnorerOfLiberals]

FOX News dead! Traitors!.

I guess we are supposed to care about BS they report on, because they pretended to be so patriotic for 15 years.

Let me ask you, how many stories did they run on the Kenyan? When we were questioning his place of birth?

Hint: 0

[Amendment10]

If conservatives can win a 14th Amendment (14A)-related case in UC Berkeley speech case, then surely the ex-high school football coach can win his silent prayer case.

(12.4.2018, that’s 2018) UC Berkeley settles landmark free speech lawsuit, will pay $70,000 to conservative group

Or is referenced ex-coach possibly an example of an otherwise good, exemplary citizen of faith paying a price for not knowing their 14A protections?

Citizens of faith who value their constitutionally enumerated rights to religious expression and free speech note that Acts 22:24-29 shows that Paul claimed his Roman citizenship to get out of a flogging.