Trade Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, there is a football coach in Washington State. He is the head coach of the JV team, and he is the assistant coach of the varsity football team. Tonight is the last game of the season for them, but he will not be coaching on the sidelines today because last night he was dismissed from his duties in Bremerton, WA. According to the attorneys at the school, he was dismissed from his duties because last Friday night at the football game, he had the audacity to kneel down at the end of the game and silently pray at the 50-yard line when the game was over, when the school had instructed him that he was not to silently pray at the end of a game.

Help me understand this. The night before the last game of the season, they kick the football coach off the field because he had the audacity to silently pray when they told him not to.

To his defense, this is not brand new. Since 2008, this same coach, at the end of the games--each game--has had the habit of kneeling and praying at the 50-yard line after the kids have gone, after the game is over, to thank God for the safety of his kids. It is a habit he started 7 years ago, but for some reason the Bremerton School District has determined this is completely unacceptable. Their perspective is that you can only have faith if no one sees it. They have literally set a new standard. What they are taking from the Borden case, which I will explain in a moment--they are saying that if you are a school official, no one can see that you have faith because if anyone sees that you have faith, they will take that as the establishment of religion from the school district. That is a standard no court in America has set. That would mean any individual who is Jewish couldn't wear a yarmulke if they were also a teacher. That would mean anyone who is Muslim couldn't wear a head scarf because clearly that is a visual display of faith. That would mean no teacher could bow their head and pray before their meal in the school lunchroom. That would mean no football coach could kneel down with 5 seconds to go in the game in, the fourth quarter, before their 16-year-old is about to kick a field goal. They would say: No, you can't kneel down and pray on the sidelines.

The absurdity of this is they set this brandnew standard that says you cannot have anyone see you have faith. That would mean that in this situation, this district has created a new legal standard that no one else has ever agreed to, literally created in the school district a faith-free zone, put up a sign on the front door that says ``No one can express any type of faith in this building.'' That is absurd.

The school district quoted multiple times from the Borden case, which is the Borden v. School District of the Township of East Brunswick case. This is what the actual case was. It was a football coach who, before the game, at a mandatory meeting of the team, led them in a prayer. The only similarity here is prayer and football because this is not a mandatory meeting before the game; this is not a required closed time; this is an individual, after the game is over, kneeling down on his own and freely expressing his faith without requiring anyone else to be there, anyone to listen. This is an individual living their faith. That is free in America, whether you are Muslim, whether you are Wiccan, whether you are Hindu, whether you are Christian, whether you are Jewish, whether you are a Federal employee or a State employee or a private citizen. Every individual retains their constitutional right to the free exercise of their religion. Does that mean they can coerce people or proselytize in that situation? No, it does not. The Court has been very clear on that. But that is not what this was. This is not a situation where the coach was coercing his players to participate in a prayer or proselytizing his players while he was on school time. He was simply kneeling down to pray, and for whatever strange reason the school district has put him on paid administrative leave and has started the process of firing the coach.

I bring this up because it suddenly becomes a national issue when a school district creates a new legal standard for every person of faith in America. Every person of faith in America has the right to live their faith. A school district does not have the right to say to someone: Your constitutional right ends here.

I can go through in great detail the different standards they leave out there, but their accommodation was this one simple thing: He could privately pray in a room of the school district's choosing. If he wanted to pray, they would put him in a spot and say: You can pray in there, in a place we pick, but you can't pray out there.

May I remind Americans that we do not have freedom of worship in America; we have the free exercise of religion in America. The government does not have the authority to confine your faith to the location of the government's choosing. A government entity like a school district cannot say to an employee: You can only live your faith over there, where we pick.

I don't know what the school district is going to do in the days ahead, but I know what Americans of all faiths and people of no faith should do. They should rise up and say: We are a nation that protects the free exercise of religion. And people who disagree with that coach should rise up in the same way with people who agree because I can assure you--if they will silence a Christian who is silently praying on the 50-yard line, I can assure you they will be after every other faith in the country and say: You can only practice your faith in the place of the government's choosing. That is not who we are.

Coach Joe Kennedy has the right to pray anywhere he wants to pray as long as it doesn't interrupt his school responsibilities. I pray that this school district and the attorneys who are trying to manufacture a new requirement on people of faith will see that in the days ahead.

I yield the floor.

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