Well, while the full consequences of the Kennedy v. Bremerton School District decision, which involves the high school football coach who prayed on the field, have yet to be felt, I admit to feeling foolish in not anticipating the following events, helpfully summarized by Jeff Dellinger at CFI’s The Morning Heresy:
Imagine suing a school district to get your job “back” (despite, it should be noted, not actually being fired), taking your case all the way to the Supreme Court—blowing a big chunk out of the wall between church and state in the process—winning, getting reinstated, and then… just never showing up for work.
Or, rather than imagine it, you could read the Seattle Times update on the coach at the Center of SCOTUS’s Kennedy v. Bremerton School District decision.
[T]he school district has been flummoxed about what’s happened since. They complied by offering to reinstate him, they say, and now the football season is in full swing. But Kennedy is nowhere near the sidelines … “He’s had the paperwork for his reinstatement since August 8th, and we haven’t gotten so much as a phone call,” says Karen Bevers, spokesperson for Bremerton schools.
It seems coaching high school football just can’t compete with becoming a celebrity on the Religious Liberty Grievances and Victimhood circuit:
[A]s the Bremerton Knights were prepping for the season in August, Kennedy was up in Alaska, meeting with former Vice President Mike Pence and evangelist Franklin Graham. On the eve of the first game, which the Knights won, Kennedy was in Milwaukee being presented with an engraved .22-caliber rifle at an American Legion convention.
The weekend of the second game, which the Knights also won, Kennedy appeared with former President Donald Trump at the Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey. He saw Trump get a religious award from a group called the American Cornerstone Institute.
Nice work if you can get it. Especially if you don’t have to do any work.
In other words, it would not be uncharitable to observe Coach Kennedy has had his head turned by attention, celebrity, and I suspect potential riches that could be his, if only he can find a way to cash in.
An earnest man would have simply shrugged off the invites and gotten on with the coaching. The example he is setting here, though, is … execrable.
Does he even know about false idols?
If I weren’t agnostic, I’d be writing nifty phrases like “Kennedy’s not being dragged down to Hell, he’s in a full blown sprint down the path,” but, not being a believer, I’ll just skip it.
