Eight current and former National Football League players, including quarterbacks Kirk Cousins and Nick Foles, have filed a friend of the court brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of a Washington state high school coach who was fired for praying on the 50-yard line.
The court document, known as an amicus brief, was filed Wednesday on behalf of former Bremerton High School football coach Joe Kennedy, who has appealed a lower court ruling against him to the Supreme Court. The Bremerton school district fired him in 2015 for engaging in on-field prayer in which some players would participate.
The amicus brief was filed by public-interest law firm Alliance Defending Freedom and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, P.C., lead counsel for Mr. Kennedy. The former and current NFL players joining the brief include Joe Delamiel-Leure, Phil Olsen, Christian Ponder, Drew Stanton, Harry Swayne and Jack Youngblood.
Each of the players “attended and played football for at least one public high school or university before turning pro” and “voluntarily exercised his constitutional right to pray before, during, and after games in which he competed on behalf of such schools — at times alone, at times with other players, and at times with coaches,” the brief states.
The players say prayers created “gratitude for the opportunity to pray” and fostered “high ideals of sportsmanship, protecting the safety of those who take the field, bridging personal, political, and racial divides among players, and ultimately in glorifying God,” the brief states.
“American citizens do not give up the right to personal prayer when they accept employment with a public employer. As our brief explains, the First Amendment protects prayer because it is private speech, not government speech,” said John Bursch, vice president of appellate advocacy and senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom.
• Mark A. Kellner can be reached at mkellner@washingtontimes.com.
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