Public Expressions of Faith

Floor Speech

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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, it is just past the middle of football season in America--a sad thing for a lot of us who are football fans. This is the time when some fans are thinking seriously about the playoffs and other fans start thinking seriously about trying to get their coach fired.

In Bremerton, WA, coach Joe Kennedy is in trouble not because the team has a losing record but because he has the audacity to kneel down and pray on the 50-yard line after the football games are over and thank God for the chance to coach there and for the safety of his players.

Gratitude to God is certainly not a crime in America. In fact, that is encouraged every year in the national prayer proclamation given by every President for decades, including this one. Coach Joe Kennedy is the varsity assistant coach and the JV head coach in Bremerton, WA. He enjoys working with the guys and coaching football. He has an excellent employment record at the school and has been a great motivator of the guys on his team.

Since 2008, Coach Kennedy has had the habit of walking out to the 50-yard line after the game is over and kneeling down to pray. After a few weeks of his starting to do this in 2008, a couple of the Christian students on the team also asked if they could come and kneel down next to him, which they have done and he has allowed them to do. They are not required to pray. They are not required to be there at all. But those students have the freedom they have exercised to express their faith, and so does Coach Kennedy.

For some reason, this season has been different. Now the district has asked the coach not to pray after the games. Instead, they want to provide him with a private room where he can go and pray separately so no one will see him. I have a letter from the district where they say they will give him this accommodation: ``[A] private location within the school building, athletic facility or press box could be made available to you for brief religious exercise before and after games.'' They literally want him to go into another spot so no one will see him pray. That seems to be the accommodation here. They are saying to him that he has the freedom to pray in a location we choose.

The district has the fear that if anyone sees the coach praying, they may think the coach endorses or that the district endorses a particular faith. They wrote in a separate letter to the coach these criteria to say: As we go forward, these are the standards to apply. Quoting from the district:

Students are free to initiate and engage in religious activity, including prayer, so long as it does not interfere with the school or team activities. Student religious activity must be entirely and genuinely student-initiated, and may not be suggested, encouraged (or discouraged), or supervised by District staff.

Second, and continuing to quote:

If students engage in religious activity, school staff may not take any action likely to be perceived by a reasonable observer, who is aware of the history and context of such activity at BHS, as endorsement of that activity. Examples identified in the Borden case include kneeling or bowing of the head during the students' religious activities.

You and all District staff are free to engage in religious activity, including prayer, so long as it does not interfere with job responsibilities. Such activity must be physically separate from any student activity, and students may not be allowed to join such activity. In order to avoid the perception of endorsement discussed above, such activity should either be non-demonstrative--

In other words, you can't see it outwardly--

(i.e. not outwardly discernible as religious activity) if students are also engaged in religious conduct, or it should occur while students are not engaging in such conduct.

In other words, don't get near a Christian student when they are praying and bowing their head and also bow your head.

It is an odd thing that the district would worry that their actions would be perceived that they may have an official policy for Christianity, but they don't seem to have the same worry that their actions to try to eliminate anyone expressing their faith would be an official policy of atheism at the campus, since if they purged all displays of faith from any person, it would appear that no faith is the endorsed faith of the district.

Under this policy, if a teacher who is a Christian sees another Christian student praying, they have to get away from them or at least walk past them as if they are disinterested. I don't think people understand how offensive that is to our faith. If I see a student praying, I would want to stand by them to hear their prayer, to be encouraged by their prayer.

Under this policy, if a Christian student had been bullied at school and they wanted to sit by a Christian teacher at lunch, when that student at lunch bowed their head to pray over their low-calorie lunch meal, at their school lunch, the Christian teacher would either have to walk away or they would have to ignore their prayer, further ostracizing the student.

Citizens don't lose their freedom of faith just because they also work for a State or Federal agency. People can display their faith--as this coach did for 7 years, and it had not been a problem for this coach to kneel down and pray at the end of the game. I am confused why suddenly now the district is concerned about this display of faith.

Individuals can display their faith personally. It is their personal faith. It is not some endorsement by the district. A Wiccan teacher can wear a pentagram necklace. A Muslim teacher can wear a head scarf. A Christian can bow their head to pray at lunch, even a faculty member. A Sikh teacher can wear a turban. All of those are outward displays of a certain faith. How can a school district say that if you display your faith in a way that someone else can see it and figure out that you have faith, suddenly that is a violation of the establishment clause of the Constitution?

Courts have ruled that in a school setting, prayer cannot be mandatory in the school, compelled by the school, led by the school. While some have a problem with this interpretation, frankly, I don't. I, quite frankly, think teachers have multiple different faiths and multiple backgrounds, and I have the responsibility as a parent to train my child how to pray consistent with our faith. That is not the responsibility of that teacher at school to be able to teach them their faith. That is my job.

I do have a problem when an individual teacher is restrained from practicing their own faith or an individual student is restricted from that. It is entirely different when a district states that a coach may not quietly pray or allow students to voluntarily participate with a coach in prayer when they share the same faith. After a game is over and all the players are free to leave, that is their own free time. They can go to the locker room, they can talk to their parents, and they can flirt with the cheerleaders on the sidelines. That is their own time. They can choose to do what they want to do, but they shouldn't be restricted from praying if they also choose to do that.

The Bremerton School District attorneys have chosen to apply the Borden v. School District of the Township of East Brunswick to this particular case. In that case, the coaches couldn't lead a prayer or participate if all the players were required to be present before the game. This is a required team meeting in the Borden School District of the Township of East Brunswick. This is completely different. This is after the game, when no player is required, no one is expected to be there, and those students and those coaches are on a brief period of respite after the game.

For some reason, in this day and age, some citizens have become terrified of faith in America and prayer in America. They are frightened when people exercise their faith and live according to their sincerely held religious beliefs. So they try to quash it quietly. That is astounding to me--as a nation that was based on this basic principle of people being able to live their faith, not just to have it but to be able to live it.

If a coach went to the 50-yard line after the game, sat down on a lawn chair and drank a Coke, no one would have a problem. If a coach went to the 50-yard line and sang Michael Jackson's ``Thriller'' and did the dance moves, he would be a YouTube sensation, but the district would have no problem with it. But if a coach goes to the 50-yard line, kneels down and prays, somehow that is a different type of speech or action. It is not. It is speech. It is the freedom of faith. It is who we are as Americans and our diversity in America. There is nothing different about that speech.

The establishment clause in the Constitution is clear: ``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. ..... ''

This is not the freedom to have a religion. This is the freedom to exercise it. It is very clear in the Constitution.

For some in this generation, they want to talk about freedom of worship. You can worship and you can go to a place of worship, you can worship with anybody, any way you want to, if you go over there and do it, but they don't want people to actually come out and live their faith publicly.

We don't have freedom of worship in America. China has freedom of worship. We have the free exercise of religion, where we can live our faith outside of our church buildings, in our private lives, even if you are a public individual.

It is reasonable for this Congress to speak out on this issue because it is a First Amendment freedom. Protecting one coach's right to pray protects every person's right to pray in the Nation.

So let me ask a question. Is the district going to engage in stopping coaches from kneeling down on the sideline during the fourth quarter in a last-second field goal attempt and prevent them from praying on the sidelines? That is a rich tradition in football.

How about this moment. Last Saturday at Oklahoma State University, we had an incredible tragedy where a car careened through the homecoming parade, killing many and injuring many more. It was a horrible tragedy. It happened just hours before the game. Players and coaches at Oklahoma State University walked out of the tunnel, and before the game started--when typically they would all gather and cheer together--they instead chose, players and coaches, to kneel down on the sideline and to pray for the families who were affected by this incredible tragedy just hours before. This apparently offends some people, that people in a State setting would express their private faith. Nothing was mandated about this. This was a group of players and coaches, that their heart was grieved for what was happening in their city and among the Oklahoma State family. This shouldn't be prohibited in America. This is who we are.

I don't challenge the people in Bremerton. These are all honorable people who want what is best for Bremerton, WA, families. They all care about their kids there. The superintendent, the principal, the coaches, they all care about the kids there. This is a genuine misunderstanding of what our Nation protects and what our Nation stands for.

Article 6, clause 3 of the Constitution says this: ``No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.''

In our Constitution, any individual who serves in any public trust in the United States doesn't have to set their faith aside nor have to take on any faith. In America, you can have a faith and live it or you can have no faith at all. That is the United States of America.

Every day in this Chamber, including today, the Chaplain for the U.S. Senate begins our session in prayer. In this Chamber, the words ``In God We Trust'' are written right above the main doors as we walk in, the same as it is in the House Chamber above the Speaker's chair. We are not a nation that is trying to purge all faith. We are a nation that allows people to live their faith.

I ask individuals in this Chamber right now who choose to, to even pray with me as I close out this statement.

Father, I pray for Coach Kennedy and the leadership of Bremerton, the superintendents, and the principals. They have a difficult job, and I pray that You would bless them today. And I pray that You encourage those students, as they struggle with this basic religious freedom that we have in this Nation, that there would be a unity there and a decision that would be made that would clearly stand on the side of freedom. For the coaches and teachers of all faiths who serve there and serve across our Nation, I pray that You would bless those coaches and teachers today. They do a difficult task. As they walk with students through difficult decisions, I pray that You would encourage them in Your faith.

Thank You, Jesus, for the way that You sustain our Nation and for the freedom that we have. We ask Your help in protecting us.

In Your Name I pray. Amen.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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