While public schools worry about problems ranging from spending budgets and SAT scores, to gun violence and mass shootings, another kind of war is being waged in the halls of American schools: The war on public prayer.

Texas high school football coach Joe Kennedy recently made national news because of his prayerful habits both pregame and post-game. He would typically go to the 50-yard line and pray for the safety of both teams before the games would start, and many student athletes would join him voluntarily. The Washington public school Kennedy coaches for, Bremerton High School, sent a three-page notice to the coach, notifying him he would no longer be allowed to pray before or after games.

Kennedy, a military veteran and conservative Christian, did not take the advice of the school district and made the decision to continue his Friday night prayers.

“I spent 20 years in the military defending the Constitution and the freedoms that everybody has. All of a sudden, I realized that people who work for the public schools don’t have the same constitutional rights that everyone else has,” Kennedy said in regard to the situation. Kennedy also said he is being punished for “thanking God for the opportunities that have been given” to him.

The Bremerton School District is completely wrong to stop Kennedy from his prayers. It is unconstitutional.

Freedom of religion is a touchy subject in America and freedom from religion also ties into the problem. American citizens can practice whatever religion they believe in, within reasonable bounds, but Americans also have the right to not be forced into practicing any one religion. Essentially, a religion cannot be specifically endorsed, especially in politics and the public sphere.

Kennedy did not violate any of these laws or ideas in his 50-yard line prayers. He did not force students to join him. He did not say that everyone must pray to his God and follow his religion. He was not endorsing any one belief. He was simply practicing his own personal beliefs publicly.

Theoretically, a Muslim should be able to do the same exact thing in America. A Buddhist, a Hindu or a person of any other religion could go to the middle of the field before a game and pray, as long as he or she did not disrupt the game or force anyone to join them.

I am not familiar with the rules in public schools concerning prayer, though I have heard that most schools seem to dislike and discourage public displays of religion by their students and employees. Perhaps my own Christian school upbringing gives me an innate bias, but it seems fundamentally wrong and unconstitutional to ban prayer, whether it be to God, Allah, Buddha or the flying spaghetti monster, from public schools.

People have the right to believe whatever they want in America and they should have the right to practice their beliefs publicly, as long as no one is in danger. This, and other similar incidents can be considered a war on Christianity in America, but in reality, a war on all belief systems seems to be going on, to some extent. Religions are being forcefully privatized and this undermines the constitutional freedoms of Americans.

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