PC Strikes Again

The list of things I don't understand is long - and growing. But I do stubbornly (bitterly?) cling to certain beliefs. One of those beliefs is that the government has no right to intervene or interfere with actions that are purely voluntary, and that pose no threat or harm to others.

According to the government, I am mistaken in that belief.

Joe Kennedy, a high school football coach in Bremerton, Wash., served in the Marines for 20 years, including in operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield in Iraq.

But the “hardest thing” he’s ever been through, he said, was being suspended from coaching football and being forced to watch his players compete from the sidelines.

“It’d be easier if you stabbed or shot at me in combat,” Kennedy told The Daily Signal. “I just felt like I was letting them down.”

For almost eight years, Kennedy, an assistant coach for the Bremerton High School varsity football team, had given thanks after games by saying a short prayer on the 50-yard line...

Before long, some of his players joined in, and over the years, the opposing teams did, too.

Kennedy's players welcomed the ritual. So also did opposing players. None were forced to participate.

In a statement, the Bremerton School District stated there is “no evidence that students have been directly coerced to pray with Kennedy.” In fact, Kennedy said, some students regularly observed from the sidelines.

So what's the problem?

... on Oct. 28, 2015, one day before the last game of the season, school officials said praying at the 50-yard line “poses as a genuine risk that the District will be liable for violating the federal and state constitutional rights of students or others.”

Say what? Voluntary participation in a voluntary ritual that is not endorsed in any way by the school district still is considered as a "genuine risk that the District will be liable for violating the federal and state constitutional rights of students or others?”

Evidently.

They suspended Kennedy from participating “in any capacity” in the Bremerton High School football program, forcing him to sit out the last game of the season.

Not only was Kennedy forced to miss the last game of the season, he was also forbidden to participate in events that honored and celebrated his players - kids he had spent months if not years working with.

"Knowing that (one of his players) came to you and that he’s asked you to be part of it and you can’t… you feel like you let him down."

You didn't let him down, Coach. The damn worthless government - scared to death by Political Correctness - did.