Tangle - Prayer at school.

Episode Date: May 3, 2022

Thanks for your patience as our podcast platform was down for software updates this afternoon! On today's ep; Last week, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, a case that could have implications for the divide between religion and education. Plus, an acknowledgement of today's Roe v. Wade news, with more extensive coverage to follow.You can read today's podcast here.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and produced by Trevor Eichhorn. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, the place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and I'm feeling a little bit better than yesterday. I hope I sound a little bit better. On today's episode, we are not going to be talking about Roe v. Wade, though we do have a reader question about abortion and a brief note about that. Obviously, the news that broke last night that the Supreme Court looks like they are going to overturn Roe v. Wade via this leak to Politico, which is rather nuts, is the biggest story in the country right now. We are not going to cover it. The reason for that is because this story just broke late last night. It's been about 12, 16, 20 hours. Typically, I find that letting

these stories breathe for a little bit more, at least 24 hours, getting some facts fleshed out, some opinions out there is really the best way to give you the most balanced and thoughtful coverage. So that's what we're going to do. Tangle is not about being first. We're about being the best. So that's our goal. But we do actually have a Supreme Court case to cover today, which is about prayer in school. And we also have a reader question about abortion. So you're going to get some Supreme Court and some abortion stuff anyway. All right, before we jump in, we'll start off with some quick hits. First up, workers at a Staten Island Amazon warehouse rejected a unionizing effort just weeks after a neighboring warehouse voted to become Amazon's first union. Number two, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Boston violated the First Amendment

rights of an activist who wanted to raise a Christian flag in front of City Hall during an event in 2017 but was rejected. 3. President Biden is meeting with the parents of abducted journalist Austin Tice, who was abducted in Syria 10 years ago. 4. Primary season begins in Ohio and Indiana today. Number four, primary season begins in Ohio and Indiana today. Number five, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Democrat from California who is 88 years old, is refusing to step down despite widespread reports of her declining memory and cognitive function. All right, that's it for our quick hits for the day. Before we jump into our main story, a correction from yesterday. We had an important error in our newsletter and a silly error in our newsletter. Two corrections, actually. First, we referred to the U.S. Department of Education and the Institute of Education Sciences as, quote, a progressive think tank. This came very

late in our editing process. It was a botched attribution from an article we were quoting that said the following. Elizabeth Warren's office said her source is data compiled by the National Center for Education Statistics and analyzed by Mark Hulsman, a former associate director of policy and research for Demos, a progressive think tank. So Mark Hulsman works at this progressive think tank. He analyzed this data from the NCES. We wrongly attributed the NCES as a progressive think tank. It was just sort of a mixed, chopped up, bad version of the attribution. Silly mistake. The NCES is a government entity.

I'm surprised we didn't catch it, but we didn't. Also in our have a nice day section, and this was a much sillier mistake, we were describing a wildlife bridge being built 10 miles above a freeway in California. That would be quite the feat to build a bridge 10 miles in the air. Obviously, it should have been 10 feet. If you listened to yesterday's podcast, you know that I'm pretty sick and that's what I'm going to blame these corrections on. These are the 60th and 61st Tango Corrections in our 145-week history. They're the first corrections since April 21st. I track corrections and put them at the top of the podcast in an effort to maximize transparency with my readers. Today, the Supreme Court once again tackled a question that has

lingered since our country's founding. Where exactly to draw the line between church and state? The U.S. Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments for one of the most important school prayer cases in more than a decade. The case involves a public high school football coach in Washington state and whether he can pray on the field after games. Former high school football coach Joseph Kennedy calls his post-game prayers on the 50-yard line religious liberty. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan had another name for it. It is a form of pressure, a form of coercion. Last week, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District,

a case that could have implications for the divide between religion and education. A brief summary of the case. The story involves Joseph Kennedy, a former football coach at Bremerton High School who made a habit of praying at midfield when games ended. From 2008 to 2015, Kennedy worked as a part-time coach for the school. He began praying at midfield after games and was occasionally joined by players from both teams who asked to pray with him. In 2015, an opposing team's coach informed the school about Kennedy's prayers. The Bremerton athletic director called Kennedy and expressed his disapproval. Kennedy then posted on Facebook that he thought he may have just been fired for praying.

Days later, though, the school sent Kennedy a letter, stressing that student prayer should be student-initiated, and asked that Kennedy not do anything to endorse those prayers. The school also said if Kennedy prayed, he should not be around students, and it should not interfere with his job responsibilities. Kennedy briefly stopped praying after games, but on October 14th, he informed the school that he would start his private post-game prayers at the 50-yard line again. Days later, Kennedy's midfield prayer became the subject of increased media and fan attention, and Kennedy was surrounded by

players, parents, and press as he prayed at midfield. Notably, Kennedy and the school district disagree about the facts surrounding those events. The school district said that Kennedy's prayers created a chaotic scene that included members of the media and fans knocking over students in the marching band to join Kennedy. In response, the school suggested that Kennedy pray in the locker room or after all the fans had left. Despite the warning, Kennedy continued to pray publicly at the next two games, and when the season concluded, the athletic director suggested Kennedy's contract should not be renewed. Kennedy sued the school, saying its actions violated his rights under the free speech and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment. That's according

to SCOTUSblog.com. So, Kennedy claims that he was fired for private prayer at midfield while the district says he refused to stop holding public prayer, which created pressure or coercion for students to join him, along with legitimate safety concerns because of the spectacle his prayer sessions caused. In lower court cases, the school district has successfully argued that if Kennedy's prayers continued, it was at risk of being sued for violating the First Amendment's Establishment Clause, which prohibits government entities from endorsing religion. Kennedy, meanwhile, argues that his brief, quiet prayer is protected First Amendment speech, that schools cannot prohibit it to try to avoid violating the

Establishment Clause. According to Amy Howe at SCOTUSblog.com, she said, Because teachers retain some free speech rights at school, Kennedy contends, everything teachers and coaches say and do is not necessarily government speech, which is not protected by the First Amendment. Therefore, he contends, the key question is whether speech by a teacher or coach is part of that employee's official duties. For teachers, he observes, those duties include teaching a lesson while a coach's duties include calling plays and giving motivational speeches. But a brief private prayer at the end of the game, he suggests, doesn't fall into either of those categories. Instead, he writes, at a time and place when coaches and

players were free to talk to family and friends, Kennedy sought to take a moment to talk to God. The school district counters that when Kennedy prayed at the 50-yard line after games, everyone from the district to students and Kennedy himself saw him as a coach. In a moment, we're going to hear some arguments from the right and the left, and then my take. First up, we'll start with what the right is saying. The right argues that Kennedy's expression of faith should be protected under the First Amendment. Many frame his prayer as a personal act outside the duties of coaching. They call on the court to clarify confusion about when religious expression is permitted in schools. Joe Kennedy, the coach in

question, has published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. Over the years, my prayers developed into motivational talks in which I led players who chose to join me in prayer. When the school district eventually told me to stop doing that, I did. My commitment with God didn't involve others. It was only to pray by myself at the 50-yard line after each game, Kennedy wrote. But then the school district got lawyers involved, and they kept shifting the goalposts every time I complied. Eventually, they said I had to refrain from any demonstrative religious activity visible to students or the public. They suggested I walk across the field, up the stairs, across a practice field, into the main school building, down the hall, and into the janitor's office if I wanted to pray after games. I thought that would send a message that prayer is something

bad that has to be hidden. I couldn't send that message, so I simply asked to continue praying quietly on one knee at the 50-yard line after each game, Kennedy added. Two days after my last post-game prayer, the school suspended me, even though it acknowledged there was no evidence that students have been directly coerced to pray with me, and that I had complied with its directives not to intentionally involve students. The school then gave me the first negative evaluation of my file, adding, do not rehire. I was fired for taking a knee in prayer by myself at the 50-yard line for 15 to 30 seconds after high school football games. In The Atlantic, David French said let Coach Kennedy pray. In 2006, the court decided a case called Garcetti v. Caballos and brought the hammer down on public employee speech. Richard Sabayos,

a prosecutor in the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office, sued his employer, claiming that he'd face unconstitutional retaliation for objecting to the prosecution's tactics in a case and cooperating with the defense, French wrote. The Supreme Court rejected his claim, holding that speech by public employees is protected only if they're speaking as private citizens, not when they, quote, make statements pursuant to their official duties. But there was an interesting carve-out. The court refused to extend its holding to speech related to scholarship or teaching. This was confusing. The court didn't explicitly protect teaching, but it didn't explicitly not protect teaching either. It punted the issue to

lower court. And now, more than 15 years later, those courts have reached a rough consensus. College professors enjoy free speech rights when speaking as educators. Public school teachers generally do not. Thus, for a public school teacher to win a First Amendment case, they generally have to prove that their speech at work was personal, not professional, French wrote. Combine a doctrine that deprives teachers of any freedom in their teaching with a school district that declares that virtually any public speech at school is professional and not personal, and you create a legal environment that treats teachers as pure instruments of state expression, required to spout only state-approved ideas from the moment they walk into campus until the moment they leave.

In Newsweek, Notre Dame law professors Richard Garnett and Joseph Graziano said the court should rule in Kennedy's favor and end the confusion. The First Amendment protects religious expression, even in public spaces. It does not require, indeed, it does not permit government officials to censor such expression. Arguing before the court, the district's lawyer pressed the claim that Kennedy's prayers were somehow coercive. Of course, the Constitution does not permit government officials, including public school employees, to compel or require participation in religious worship or prayer. As the coach's lawyer reminded the justices, though, there is no evidence of any coercion in this case. The reasons originally given by the district for punishing the coach were not about alleged coercion, but instead reflected

a misunderstanding of the Constitution's Establishment Clause. The district was afraid that by permitting Kennedy's personal religious activity, it would somehow have endorsed religion. But as the coach's lawyer and several of the justices observed, the government does not endorse private religious speech just because it takes place on the school's side of the gates. Coach Kennedy's case provides the court with an opportunity to clarify its infamously muddled constitutional rules governing religious expression and symbols in the public square. Such a cleanup would provide

much-needed guidance to lower courts, local officials, and school administrators, and would prevent funds that are needed for books and right is saying, which brings us to the left's take. The left argues that there is evidence Kennedy violated the rights of his players. They say the court should make it clear that the right to religious expression is limited in the school. Some argue that his prayer was not actually private, but that it should have been. In Fox News, Patrick Elliott argued that the religious liberty that's really at stake belongs to athletes who are at the mercy of their coach. Kennedy's attorneys have sought to wave a magic wand and distort the facts of the case

in order to secure a victory before the court and the court of public opinion. At various times, they have claimed that Kennedy's post-game prayers on the 50-yard line of the case in order to secure a victory before the court and the court of public opinion. At various times, they have claimed that Kennedy's post-game prayers on the 50-yard line were private, silent, and personal. None of those descriptors is accurate, Elliott wrote. An Appalachian judge even called Kennedy's attorney's versions of events a deceitful narrative. For years, Kennedy imposed his religion on football players by reciting team prayers not only on the field at the 50-yard line after games, but, tellingly, also in the locker room. He bragged about his 50-yard line prayers on Fox News Radio in October of 2015, saying that the entire team joined him. It was apparent at the time that he wanted to continue to involve students in the prayers. At the homecoming game in 2015,

Kennedy and an onslaught of pious performance artists rushed the field after the game, knocking over some students. Kennedy invited a state legislator to join his prayer and address the team. True religious freedom means that students are not pressured or encouraged by school staff to engage in religious activity, Elliott said. Religion is personal, and students' rights of conscience must not be interfered by a coach who wants to impose religion on other people's children. One Bremerton parent reported that his son felt compelled to participate because he feared he wouldn't get to play as much. Other parents said that their children participated in the prayers because they didn't want to be separated from the team. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown.

When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Hear Your Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. In Slate, Mark Joseph Stern praised Brett Kavanaugh for a piercing series of questions during oral arguments. Midway through the arguments, Kavanaugh forced Kennedy's lawyer, Paul Clement, to address the environment his prayer created, directly asking, What about the player who thinks, if I don't participate in this, I won't start next week?

Or the player who thinks, if I do participate in this, I will start next week? The best Clement could offer was a bromide. If any coach or teacher does it, shame on them and they should be punished. This answer, it seems, did not satisfy Kavanaugh, who launched into a monologue about his still unaddressed concerns. I guess the problem at the heart of it is you're not going to know, Kavanaugh said. The coach is probably not going to say anything like, the reason I'm starting you is that you knelt at the 50-yard line. You're never going to know, and that leads to the suspicions by parents.

I think I'm just playing out what the other side is saying here. The suspicion by parents that the reason Johnny's starting and you're not is because he was part of the prayer circle, and I don't think you can get around that. That's a real thing out there. That's going to be a real thing in situations like this. I don't know how to deal with that, frankly. In the Los Angeles Times, Randall Balmer wrote, Jesus said to pray in a closet, not on the 50-yard line. As an Episcopal priest, I'd be the last person to gainsay the importance of prayer. But context matters. It matters a lot, Balmer wrote. Anytime prayer is compulsory or coercive in a public context, it can violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which forbids the state from favoring one faith over another,

or no faith at all. But it also violates the spirit of prayer itself. Jesus had something to say about the matter. He castigated the religious authorities of his day for their public prayers. He called them hypocrites, standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets so they could be seen by others. Jesus, who rarely in the New Testament prayed publicly, instructed his followers instead to enter thy closet and shut thy door to pray. Pray in a closet, not at the fifty-yard line. For the faithful, an even greater danger than coercion is trivialization,

Balmer wrote. The power of religion lies not with coercion but with faith itself, and religion has flourished in the United States as nowhere else precisely because it is uncoerced, precisely because of the First Amendment and the separation of church and state. The First Amendment set up a free marketplace for religion where all traditions compete without the state expressing a preference. All right, that is it for the left and the right's take. That brings me to my take. So, fun fact about me, I am a descendant on my father's side of Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island who is famous for his advocacy of religious freedom and the separation of church and state. I'd be remiss not to invoke him here

and his call to separate the garden of the church from the wilderness of the world. As Randall Balmer explains in his op-ed, Williams viewed the wilderness not as a place of calming nature, but rather great danger, and his view is that in order to protect the integrity of faith, we must keep it from politics and the state. Often, when covering Supreme Court cases or decisions like this, I find myself supportive of the standard the ruling sets, but concerned about the practical outcome of the ruling in the immediate sense. In this case, I actually feel the reverse, worried that the court will further blur the lines between church and state, but sympathetic to Kennedy, who I think should be able to pray at the 50-yard line after

games. The question that clarified this for me came from Clarence Thomas, who I think should be able to pray at the 50-yard line after games. The question that clarified this for me came from Clarence Thomas, who proposed a hypothetical. If the coach, instead of taking a knee for prayer, took a knee during the national anthem because of a moral opposition to racism, would the school view that as government speech? The school's lawyers said yes, but frankly, I don't believe them. Protests against racial injustice have been happening across the country for several years, and rarely are they viewed as representative of a school, government, or governing body. In fact, they're most often viewed as an athlete, coach, or teacher courageously bucking some expected norm, like standing for the national anthem, separate from the employer, entity, or team they are representing. If Kennedy had taken a knee for racial justice,

I would not view that as the Bremerton School District protesting racism. I would view it as Kennedy protesting racism. I'm not saying that makes this case clear-cut. On the contrary, former players have said that praying with Kennedy felt expected or that they participated because they did not want to feel separated from the team. That should be the death blow to Kennedy's case, and it's why I'm concerned the court will rule in his favor. As a Jew and a former high school athlete, I can understand both the sense of being a

religious minority at school and the conflicting desire to stand shoulder to shoulder with teammates. That is why Kennedy's prayers should be silent and solitary, and it's why there was such a big problem when it wasn't. Still, I'm conflicted because I found Kennedy's life story inspiring. A troubled kid who found prayer in God then became a beloved coach who wore his faith without shame. I don't find the act of a silent, solitary prayer at the end of a football game objectionable in any way. I reject the notion that Kennedy was an aggressor or needed to be stifled, but the evidence does

suggest that the prayer became a spectacle, one that introduced church into a setting where, by law, it is meant to be forbidden. That Kennedy rejected the school's alternative solutions and that players and parents felt coerced by his prayer hampers his case dramatically. As I argued in stories about LGBTQ issues or critical race theory in schools, I do not think teachers should simply be conduits of the state. They are people with beliefs and experience, and they should be allowed to express them in class. My preference would be to live in a country where this story did not become a court challenge, and Kennedy could wear his faith proudly,

but appropriately within the bounds of his role as a coach. But now that the question is before the court, my hope is that they err on the side of fortifying the separation of church and state, not muddying it even further. All right, next up is a your questions answered. So as if today wasn't contentious enough, talking about prayer and school, we're going to jump into abortion now. Lisa from Maryland wrote in and said, last week, you allowed anti-abortion activist Josh Bram to answer a question about abortion. You cryptically noted that you did not agree with his response, but understandably shared it anyway, since the question was sort of addressed to an anti-abortion activist. What about Josh's answer did you not agree with though? Okay, so

last week I let Josh, who is a Tangle reader and friend, answer this hypothetical question from a reader. The reader asked, suppose you have a couple with one very young child and that child has fallen mortally ill. There is a medical procedure that may save the child's life, but it requires the participation of one of the parents. The child will definitely die if they do not undergo the procedure. Can we morally and or legally force either parent to participate in the procedure? If not, then how is the case of abortion different? If so, then can we force people to give up blood, organs, tissues, etc. to sick people? So I thought this was a very good question, and it strikes a part of what I find so confounding about many arguments to make abortion illegal, which is why I asked Josh to answer it.

I'm not going to rehash the whole thing here, especially with the Roe v. Wade story on the docket for tomorrow. It was only a week ago, so most Tangle listeners or readers here now were also listening or reading then, and you can find a link to Josh's answer in today's newsletter if you want. But for starters, Josh began by saying that most pro-choice people, quote, aren't primarily pro-choice because they believe the fetal human isn't a person, but because they believe the government shouldn't tell a woman what to do with her body or something in her body, even if that thing is a person. Anecdotally, I don't think this is true. I think a lot of pro-choice people recognize a fetus as having the potential to grow into a person, but also

view it as something markedly less than an individual that deserves the same rights as a mother or newborn baby. Most pro-choice Americans I've heard discuss abortion argue that a fetus, especially in the first few weeks, is little more than a clump of cells. Many also make this point about personhood by noting that, for instance, you can't know if you're having twins or triplets until roughly 10 to 12 weeks of pregnancy, so how can you define anything before that as an individual person? Fundamentally, I think the pro-choice side views a fetus as less than a newborn and much more as part of the woman's body, which is precisely why they find it so objectionable that the government can regulate how they navigate pregnancy, especially early on. Josh also rewrote the analogy to propose a

scenario where he had to donate a kidney to me to keep me alive. Of course, Josh's analogy was meant to be similar to the one the reader proposed, but I think it speaks to the complexity of this issue that it's uneven and imperfect to frame it this way. My personal belief is that there's a marked difference between conception and personhood, and I didn't think Josh did enough to address that. Even if he had, though, I found the response unsatisfying. He wrote that the, quote, morally relevant difference between forcing a person to give a kidney to a dying friend and having an abortion is the distinction between, quote, not helping someone and directly I thought this framing of the reader's analogy did little to address the reality of pregnancy. Josh, for instance, proposed two passive decisions, not giving a kidney to a dying friend and not terminating a pregnancy.

But the difference between not donating a kidney and carrying a pregnancy to term is massive. A woman who gives birth to a perfectly healthy baby is changed forever, physically and emotionally, and faces very real danger until and immediately after giving birth. Statistically, carrying a pregnancy to term, where 23 in 100,000 women in the U.S. die, even with access to legal abortion, is far more dangerous than donating a kidney, where 7 people per 100,000 donors die. And neither scenario comes close to being as dangerous as being the infant, which includes a 558 per 100,000 birth death rate. All of this is to say nothing of the other potential complications of pregnancy and raising a child. Given that, as a risk assessment alone, I can make an argument that

refusing to donate a kidney to a dying family member is much more morally objectionable than, say, having an abortion 12 weeks into a pregnancy. I didn't feel that the argument was addressed at all in Josh's answer, and it left me feeling pretty unresolved. at all in Josh's answer, and it left me feeling pretty unresolved. Alright, that is it for the reader question, which brings us to a story that matters. Starting November 1st, employers in New York City will be required to post the maximum and minimum salaries for openings they are hiring for. The new rule is becoming a trend across the U.S. with similar laws in place in Colorado and Washington and may be the dawn of a new era of salary transparency. Advocates of the

law say it will improve equal pay and businesses can post a wide range of salaries if they desire. Opponents of the law say it will hamper their ability to hire in an already tight labor market. The law was supposed to go into effect this month but was delayed until November. Axios has the story. There's a link to it in today's newsletter. All right, next up is our numbers section. The percentage of U.S. adults who say public school teachers should be allowed to lead students in Christian prayer is 30%. The percentage of U.S. adults who say public school teachers should not be allowed to lead students in Christian prayer is 30%. The percentage of US adults who say public school teachers should not be allowed to lead students in Christian prayer is 46%.

The percentage of US adults who say they didn't know or refuse to answer is 26%. The percentage of US adults who say the federal government should stop enforcing the separation of church and state is 19%. The percentage of US adults who say the federal government should continue to enforce the separation of church and state is 19%. The percentage of U.S. adults who say the federal government should continue to enforce the separation of church and state is 54%. And the percentage who said they didn't know or refused to answer was 27%. All right, last but not least, our have a nice

day story. This personally for me is one of the most encouraging have a nice day stories I've found recently. Scientists in Texas say they have created a Pac-Man protein that breaks down plastic and could open the door to eliminating billions of tons of landfill waste. The enzyme destroys PET, the polyethylene terephthalate. I really don't know how to say that. The chemical that is found in plastic packaging and textiles. The possibilities are endless across industries to leverage this leading-edge recycling process, Professor Hal Alper of the University of Texas at Austin said. Through these more sustainable enzyme approaches, we can begin to envision a true circular plastics economy. PET makes up 12% of all global waste, and in some cases, the enzyme can break it down in as little as 24 hours. The Good News Network has the story. There's a link to it in today's newsletter.

All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast. We will be back tomorrow with our Roe v. Wade coverage and getting the mix on one of the biggest stories of the year, the decade decade the century it's it's wild stuff until then have a good one our newsletter is written by isaac saul edited by bailey saul sean brady ari weitzman and produced in conjunction with tangle's social media manager magdalena bakova who also helped create our logo. The podcast is edited by Trevor Eichhorn and music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. For more from Tangle, subscribe to our newsletter or check out our content archives at www.readtangle.com. Thanks for watching! Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu,

a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+.