Supreme Court Hears Football Coach Prayer Case

It’s a glorious podcast today as David and Sarah talk about a praying football coach, ...

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It’s a glorious podcast today as David and Sarah talk about a praying football coach, Miranda rights, and the hottest Supreme Court justices. They answer a key constitutional question: how undead is the Lemon Test?

Show Notes:

–SCOTUSblog: “Can you sue the police for Miranda violations?”

–Kennedy v. Bremerton School District

–PBS: “Chief Justice Roberts’ emotional tribute to retiring Justice Breyer”

–Hottest Supreme Court justices?

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Comments (134)
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  1. Alice Hawkes

    The coach wanted to make a public statement. He could have prayed privately, no one stopped him from his private prayer. He could have prayed to God in his heart. What’s gonna happen when all those other religions want to pray.

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  2. Karin

    Did anyone else read David’s column in the Atlantic: “Let Coach Kennedy Pray”. IMO his makes David’s position very clear, and it’s not sympathetic to Sarah’s counterarguments: “Americans of any or no faith should hope that the Supreme Court permits a coach named Joseph Kennedy to pray on the field after football games.“ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/04/how-praying-football-coach-can-help-preserve-pluralism-public-schools/629709/

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    Charles

    When you discuss the leak, I’m curious to know about the background of clerks. I know the justices are all Yale/Harvard alumni, but are the clerks as well? If it was leaked by a clerk, their motive could be an extension of the hysteria at elite law schools in recent years that you’ve discussed. Hysteria in which obliterating the Current Political Crisis always takes precedence over norms and decency.

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    1. Jon Endean

      Mostly YLS/HLS/Chicago, with a smattering from a few other schools. Breakdown of the clerks of the current justices is as follows:
      JGR: HLS, HLS, YLS, Chicago
      CT: HLS, YLS, HLS, Chicago
      SGB: YLS, SLS, YLS, Chicago
      SA: Duke, Chicago, YLS, YLS
      SS: UCLA, YLS, YLS, YLS
      EK: Michigan, SLS, YLS, Chicago
      NMG: BYU, Penn, SLS, Chicago
      BMK: Notre Dame, YLS, YLS, Chicago
      ACB: UVA, Chicago, HLS, GW

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  4. Roxy S

    There better be an emergency pod tomorrow! On the decision and the leak!

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      Charles

      I’m especially interested in hearing more about some takes I’ve seen on Twitter about how the ruling effectively guts Substantive Due Process in general.

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    2. Jon Endean

      I had exactly the same thought . . . .

      I don't think any of us are hoping to tune in to hear about Justice Breyer's opinion in Shurtleff v. Boston right now.

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  5. Ted Hosp

    I haven’t read all the comments, so maybe this point has been made. Worse - I haven’t read the briefs or anything in this (Coach prayer) case, so maybe I am missing something obvious. But I was curious about one thing that I thought I heard on the podcast. I thought I heard maybe Sarah say that the Coach had said that the prayers were a part of what he viewed as his job - part of coaching - and making his players better football players (and people, I assume). But I also know you both said that it was clear that the praying was clearly not speech in his official capacity - and therefore could not be attributed to the school. But if he views the prayer as part of coaching - why isn’t there an argument that it is speech in his official capacity?

    (Btw - Sarah - we have a mutual friend. Prim Escalona was a student of mine when I was an adjunct at UA Law, and we have remained close since then.)

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  6. General Darden

    David and Sarah: were the writings in today's case not penned prior to this pod, I would have thought there is a certain justice listening..."Because Lemon “ignored the original meaning of the Establishment Clause,” “disregarded mountains of precedent,” and “substituted a serious constitutional inquiry with a guessing game,” Gorsuch concluded, state and local governments should follow the lead of the Supreme Court, which “long ago interred Lemon,” and “let it lie.” Hmmm.....plagiarism? Uh, no - it was spoken by y'all, and not written. Misappropriation or simply greater minds thinking alike?

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    PJ

    The elephant in the room no one wants to talk about is the desperation of a praying football coach with a sadly impotent faith. Science and reason are taking us in a new direction.

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  8. Dan Giesen

    In the end, let's all see this for what it is. This really isn't a religious freedom case. This is politics, not Christianity. Even Jesus calls it out:
    Matthew 6:5-6 "5 And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

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    Alexander Culpepper

    I don’t know if someone answered this yet, but the film is “Facing the Giants” my dad wanted to get my HS football team to go watch it when I played.

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    OK Steele

    ACB is the most attractive justice on the day of their appointment and other than arguably White it’s not even close.

    If we’re gonna consider what these people looked like before appointment things start to get out of control. All of the female justices were pretty women in college. You seen a photo of RBG in her 20’s? Stone cold fox. SDOC? Fox.

    Most people are attractive in their 20’s. Do we have photos of all former justices from young adulthood? I doubt it.

    It then seems that most of the justices aren’t getting a fair representation when photos of them at 64 are being compared to John Roberts at 18.

    The only way to properly rank these people would be instituting a cutoff at the day of their appointment to SCOTUS. Anything else would be almost as ridiculous as the practice of ranking justices on their attractiveness itself.

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