“My special magic is true and yours isn’t.” This is shall be the running theme of our look at the recent hullabaloo at Bremerton High School, in Washington state.
The story breaks down as this. Football Coach guy leads a christian prayer on the 50 yard line after each football game. He’s been doing it since 2008.
2008. This is the real story. Why did the local school board allow this dipshit to continue to practice his delusional-voodoo rituals for seven years before deciding that it is problematic at best?
“While the district appreciates Kennedy’s many positive contributions to the BHS football program … Kennedy’s conduct poses a genuine risk that the district will be liable for violating the federal and state constitutional rights of students or others,” the letter reads.”
Why act now? Well because once the Satanists show up, as they say, all hell breaks loose.
“About a dozen members of the Satanic Temple of Seattle, most dressed in hooded black robes and some masked, left Bremerton High School shortly after their arrival at a varsity-football game Thursday night. […]
Temple spokeswoman Lilith Starr said the group was invited to protest Kennedy’s ritual of kneeling on the 50-yard line after games and praying. “We want equality for everyone,” she said. “If one group is allowed to pray, everyone should be.”
Oh, well. Now there is a problem. Now the craven school board has to act, because a ‘bad’ religion wants the same access perform their magic at a football game.
Reasonably speaking, this should be case closed. However, one must never forget how deep the religious delusion runs in the United States.
“When contacted for comment, Kennedy referred questions to Berry, senior counsel at the Liberty Institute in Plano, Texas.
Berry said the institute, which says its mission is to defend and preserve religious liberty in America, is “prepared to take the necessary legal actions to defend coach Kennedy’s religious freedom.” Another Liberty lawyer said placing Kennedy on leave was a hostile-employment action and that the group would file a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.”
Did someone just cue the ‘Persecuted Majority Christian Complex’? I would have thought that we were so over that bulwark of stupidity. But nope, our heroic coach’s religious liberty is at stake and actions must be taken!!!!!!!!
This, of course, is hogwash (see thesis). But let’s look at a particularly disdainful statement from the coach.
“He said that he has welcomed students to pray with him but never encouraged it.”
Nimrod, when you are in a position of authority as coaches and teachers are, “encouragement” is doublespeak for coercion. Just put yourself in the shoes of the students on the team, and the stupid social dynamics that go on – do you really single yourself out and not participate in the christian magic that happens at midfield?
Religious liberty does not empower you to enforce your beliefs on others. Full stop. In a society that is not in desperate need of a secular intellectual revolution, this solution would be plain as day.
[Source: Seattle Times]
[Source:CNN]
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
Dead Wild Roses 
9 comments
November 1, 2015 at 4:53 am
john zande
This thing could really spin out of control if Christians, eager to play the “victim,” start deliberately disobeying laws.
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November 1, 2015 at 8:10 am
tildeb
I sincerely wish more religious people would pull their heads out of their asses and understand why they – especially they – need to be secularist supports rather than self-made victims busy trying to impose their beliefs on others and using the law to try to get away with it.
As a side note, I thought I should remind you that your dipping into the language of dysfunctional mental health (which is justifiable based on the facts) will supposedly cause irreparable harm to delicate snowflakes everywhere and invite SeriusBizness to send your links about the caustic effects from the use of such language on those suffering from them. So let me be the first to cheer you on while shaking my head and tsk tsking you to remain seen as appropriately concerned about the less fortunate. If SB had administrative rights here, he would ban you, Arb… not because the issue you raise and comment on are not important to criticize or have been inappropriately criticized but because it’s WAY more important to consider the effects from the negative stereotyping you intentionally use with your hurtful tone… which is worthy of censure because SB says so.
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November 1, 2015 at 8:36 am
The Arbourist
@JZ
I think that we will see more of this sort of event happen in the US. The religious bullshite base that has been fostered by the GOP to get votes has become a uncontrollable force. The ruthlessly anti-progressive, anti-modern, ogre they’ve crafted is starting to lash out indiscriminately based on its perception of being under attack and exploited.
You’re right – this is the method (among the usual religious ones) of self-justifying illegal, immoral actions. It could get ugly, very quickly.
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November 1, 2015 at 9:40 am
The Arbourist
@Tildeb
One need only to look at the history of recent fundamentalist regimes to see the damage religious influence inflicts on people, society and the world. The nest of militant Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia comes to mind.
It seems that without a secular, reality based counter-weight to religious extremism fundamentalist regimes manage to go ‘whole ham’ with policies that, while embracing ideological purity, sow discord and terror on the regional and political stages.
For those of us who craft language and are thoughtful about the effects of what well constructed ideas have on people, it is our responsibility to use our abilities thoughtfully and wisely. If we can avoid disparaging ostracized groups in society and still get the message across as intended, should we not try?
The use of critical, offensive language overlaps with many problematic aspects of our hierarchical culture. It is not only the words that are being said, but who is saying them and in what medium they are being offered. I understand where SB is coming from – language can be used to stigmatize and denigrate entire segments in society, keeping them marginalized and under duress. If we can choose words and constructions that do not further this marginalization would it not be appropriate to do so?
Conversely, being offended is not a shield to be used to protect faulty arguments and poor ideas. In a society that values modernity and progress the status-quo must constantly be scrutinized, contested and challenged. And if this happened solely on in rarefied plutonic realm life would be grand.
Unfortunately, this realm does not exist. The debates we have, the criticisms we put forward, the arguments we raise all come from within the context of our hierarchical, fundamentally unjust, society. The amount of power and influence we can exert is tied directly to factors we often have no control over – sex, race, lineage etc. Thus, the free-marketplace of ideas, like the real marketplace, is necessarily distorted because of host of factors and influences that select for certain attributes (being white and male for instance) and selected against for others (being female, non-white, having mental illness etc.)
Ignoring that this selection process exists and doubling down on the platonic notion of ‘free-speech’ and ‘objective-criticism’ is beginning to stray into the just world fallacy and the victim blaming that comes along with it.
TL:DR – Going after faulty reasoning, arguments and beliefs is a-okay. Being an asshole while doing so is less okay. I believe that being mindful of how much asshole we bring to the table is the heart of the matter.
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November 1, 2015 at 9:41 am
syrbal-labrys
I’ve been watching this on the local news with a growing sense of furious frustration. It is SUCH bullshit; not in the least because just what sort of fucking god would be the sort to listen to FOOTBALL prayers in a world of war, disease, and starvation? And the idiocy of THAT never dawns on them? Is it just schadenfreude that makes me say, snarkily, “God bless the Satanists!”
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November 1, 2015 at 9:47 am
The Arbourist
@Srybal
The ability to choose ones frame of reference has never been so obvious. You nailed it, I mean does the LORD, the creator of the Universe, and all things within really give two shits about humans and what they do with ovid-shaped, air-filled, leather bladders?
Not dealing with existential reality seems to be the root of the problem. :/
Amen! :)
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November 1, 2015 at 9:51 am
syrbal-labrys
Maybe if we NAMED and used a ball bat “existential reality”? I know using that bat would help me with MY existential reality!
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November 1, 2015 at 12:23 pm
roughseasinthemed
@ Tildeb and Arb
I hope it’s ok to comment on the ‘crazy’ on here, as maybe a slightly neutral ground because I’d like to add my perspective.
Firstly, I value tildeb’s comments, I appreciate some of the fine ripostes made on my blog specifically in regards to womens’ rights.
Secondly, I think religious people are totally off the wall irredeemably lunatic. That’s my personal view. Not a clinical one.
And, I have also asked people (not Tildeb ironically) on my blog to be careful with their language because it DOES impact on people who are mentally ill, to appear to throw disparaging comments around.
Both on here and on John’s, Arb has made valid points about minority groups and use of language. And about how white men dictate society. It is only when you have ever been a minority group, in one or more ways, that you can understand how damaging language can be. Because I can launch from here to eternity on sexist language.
The issue about crazy, is that it is basically a colloquial term. Not a medical or scientific one as I think tildeb has pointed out. But … not everyone is honestly that well informed. So the average person in the street uses crazy for this that and the other person. All the time, demeaning the little dignity someone with mental illness has. Quite frankly, I think we’re all crazy some of the time. Just not as crazy as people who believe a god finds us a parking space or whatever.
Arb, it’s off topic and I’m sorry. But I don’t want to see people with whom I share a lot in common arguing over this topic. Tildeb – you have made your point.
And prayers at football? JFC!
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November 1, 2015 at 6:06 pm
tildeb
Encountering a pair of delusional references meant that I just couldn’t help myself, Roughseas. It’s such a deterministic universe, donchaknow!
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