IFI, along with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Concern Women for America, and thirteen other Christian organizations, filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court this week in favor of Coach Joe Kennedy, who was fired from a public school in Washington State because he prayed briefly at the 50-yard line after football games.

Coach Kennedy is a man of deep faith who has been saying a brief prayer following his team’s football games for years. Initially he did so alone, but then some students and other coaches freely chose to join in. When the school learned what he was doing, it demanded he stop, but he felt responsible to thank God for the games in that way. As a result, he lost his job.

First Liberty Institute sued the school district on Kennedy’s behalf, but both a U.S. District Court and a Court of Appeals sided with the school district. Kennedy appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and in January, SCOTUS agreed to hear the case. (For a more detailed history, read First Liberty Institute’s case summary.)

The issue before the high court is whether the speech and religious liberty rights provided by the First Amendment protect Kennedy’s brief prayer following games and whether the Establishment Clause justifies his dismissal, as the school district has argued. In recent years, SCOTUS has interpreted the Establishment Clause to foster neutrality towards religion. Our amicus brief in this case argues that,

[The Establishment Clause] states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” It obviously does not prohibit any governmental action about or allowing religion. If it did, the Constitution would be at war with itself. Indeed, the very next phrase of the First Amendment protects the “free exercise” of religion, an obvious endorsement of religious observance by affirmatively protecting it. The Establishment Clause, by forbidding the government to establish religion, has the effect of reinforcing the private exercise of religion. The restraint on “an establishment” does not trump or supersede the belief or practice of religion. “Government does not establish religion by leaving its private exercise alone.”

The First Amendment is pro-freedom of speech, pro-freedom of press, and pro-freedom of assembly. It accomplishes those purposes by providing that “Congress shall make no law … abridging” those freedoms. Similarly, the First Amendment is pro-religious observance, not hostile to it in one clause and in favor of it in another. And while the operation of the clauses may overlap, by their very nature and purpose they do not contradict each other when, as here, the state does not initiate, and acts neutrally in accommodating, the private exercise of religion.

A short prayer following a game, joined in by only those who want to be there by their own free will, hardly amounts to an establishment of religion, particularly when the school makes it clear that it has nothing to do with Coach Kennedy’s activities.

Oral arguments for this case are expected in April.

Take ACTION: Please keep this case, the Justices, and their clerks in your prayers. Pray that religious freedom and the free exercise of that liberty will be upheld by the Court.

Read more:

Catholic Bishops Support Praying Football Coach in SCOTUS Case (CNA)

Family Policy Alliance Files SCOTUS Brief on Behalf of Praying Coach (FPA)

Written by Kelle Berry

Recently, an activist group known as the Secular Democrats of America (SDA) sent a document to the president and the administration with a directive “to take back the mantle of religious freedom and pluralism.”

On the surface, the title—Restoring Constitutional Secularism and Patriotic Pluralism in the White House—makes the SDA’s mission sound appealing. The document calls to:

“…Oppose discrimination against atheists, agnostics, humanists, seekers, religious and nonreligious persons and to champion the value of freedom of thought and conscience…”

This even makes it sound harmonious with First Liberty’s own mission of protecting religious freedom for all Americans. After all, the First Amendment grants everyone the right to freely exercise their religious beliefs, convictions and to act according to their conscience without government censorship, threat, or coercion.

However, scratching beneath the surface, one sees that the SDA’s demands are much more dangerous. Inside the document, one finds a detailed “blueprint” redefining religious freedom in a way that would be unrecognizable to America’s Founders.

Building a Higher Wall of Separation?

Invoking America’s third president, the SDA implores a return to a “Jeffersonian approach to governance.” In other words, the SDA is petitioning to fortify a higher “wall of separation” between church and state.

Many high school civics students are undoubtedly familiar with those words from Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists. But what may not be known is that Jefferson wrote them to reassure the church that the First Amendment ensured the government would not interfere in their religious activities. At no time did Jefferson believe that religion and government could not mix.

Indeed, one need look no further than Jefferson’s attendance at church services held inside the U.S. Capitol itself as evidence of his approval of strong church-state relations.

Jefferson and a vast majority of our nation’s Founders understood that faith is not only permissible in the public square, but also beneficial. Houses of worship and religious organizations all faiths care for the sick, feed the hungry, and shelter the homeless. And the benefits don’t stop with charity. A recent study reports that religion contributes $1.2 trillion to the U.S. economy.

In stark contrast to the Founders’ constitutional intent, the SDA commands employees “to separate their personal religious beliefs from their work.” Sadly, some government officials have completely bought into this unconstitutional view.

First Liberty continues to protect Coach Joe Kennedy’s right as a high school football coach to pray alone after games. If the SDA gets its way, Coach Kennedy and millions of other Americans who are government employees will suffer irreparable harm to their First Amendment rights—putting them in the untenable position of choosing between their faith and their job.

Government employees are not the only ones who will suffer under the SDA’s aggressive plan.

Private religious organizations who have historically been able to work with the government are also threatened. In the case of Fulton v. City of Pennsylvania, currently pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, Catholic adoption agencies that have, for decades, worked with the government to provide loving homes for adoptive children have been told to sacrifice their religious identity in order to continue their work.

Unsurprisingly, the SDA opposes the right of the adoption agencies: “[n]o institution, religious or secular, is entitled to access taxpayer funding.” If the SDA gets its way, it won’t just be orphans in need of loving homes who suffer. Millions of Americans who benefit from the benevolent partnership between church and state will also suffer.

Legislation Already Under Way

It’s tempting to quickly dismiss the SDA’s demands. However, people of faith must realize that some in positions of power who sympathize with the SDA’s message are already acting to implement its agenda.

For example, look at the effort on Capitol Hill to pass the so-called Equality Act, which if signed into law, would effectively overturn the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) which, as its name suggests, was intended to restore religious freedom.

The Equality Act may sound appealing in name, but the only equality it seeks to achieve is to eradicate any religious beliefs that do not conform to the government’s preferred orthodoxy. It’s a law that would squash dissent and differing viewpoints from the public sphere. The sad irony is that the Equality Act is actually antithetical to the SDA’s stated principles and its championing of pluralism.

At a time when the SDA and many other activist groups are pushing to recreate the U.S. Constitution, First Liberty remains vigilant and undeterred in our mission to protect and defend religious freedom consistent with the vision of America’s Founders. And regardless of who resides in the White House or controls the U.S. Congress, we will continue being the best hope for victory for Americans of all faiths.

This article was originally published at FirstLiberty.org.

A non-binding resolution which would force the armed forces to disobey the directive of Commander-in-Chief President Donald Trump and compromise national security has passed in the U.S. House of Representatives. The deeply-flawed resolution (H.Res. 124) is replete with “LGBT” ideology and is a continuation of the radical social agenda of the previous administration.

The resolution passed on a vote of 238-185, with the entire Democrat caucus supporting it and virtually all Republicans opposing it. The Illinois Congressional delegation voted along partisan lines.

The resolution’s sponsor, U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-MA), claimed that current policy amounts to “targeted discrimination,” and said the House vote assures transgender people “that they cannot be banned from military service because of who they are.”

Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of the “LGBT” advocacy organization GLAAD expressed satisfaction with the resolution and demanded that the administration get on board: “It’s a welcoming reassurance that the elected leaders in the U.S. House support the more than 13,000 brave transgender service members who proudly dedicate their lives to our nation. It’s time for President Trump to drop his proposed ban and stand with transgender patriots putting their lives on the line to keep us all safe.”

The roots of the administration’s opposition to those who choose to identify as homosexual or “trans” serving in the military go back to 2017 when a panel of experts commissioned by former Secretary of Defense James Mattis assessed the effects of accepting persons suffering from a psychological condition called gender dysphoria into the military. The panel’s results indicated that “trans”-identifying individuals have complex medical issues as well as high rates of suicide.

Moreover, treatments that are approved by “progressive” “experts” failed to lead to a more positive outcome. In their testimony before Congress, all four service chiefs claimed they had not seen moral or unit readiness problems with “trans”-identifying troops currently serving but also acknowledged that commanders were forced to spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with the medical and “transition issues” of “trans”-identifying soldiers.

A year later President Trump endorsed the findings of the panel and proposed a nuanced policy regarding “trans”-identifying persons in the military, the details of which are expected to be released on April 12. In short, the new policy bars people from enlisting who have pursued chemical and surgical interventions in their quest to pass as the opposite sex.  In a move that will likely be a focal point for opponents, it requires active duty military personnel to serve as their immutable biological sex, except for those who had already begun medical interventions under the previous administration rules.

Concurrently, the Department of Defense released a study which noted five key points that address combat lethality, military readiness, and troop morale. The study included detailed graphs which outline the principles behind the Trump/Mattis policy.

Meanwhile the new policy regarding “trans”-identification continues to wind its way through the court system.  The District of Columbia Court issued a preliminary injunction against the Trump/Mattis “trans” policy, which was overturned by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. One of the members of the three-judge panel, Judge Stephen F. Williams wrote this regarding a related case, Jane Doe 2 v. Trump:

[Transgender plaintiffs’] claims are fundamentally flawed in almost every respect. They give short shrift to the findings of a panel of military experts commissioned by the secretary of defense. They never grapple with the fact that the presidential tweet, on which they place so much weight, post-dates–rather than ante-dates–the decision of the secretary to reevaluate the previous administration’s policies.

There is a good chance that the Trump/Mattis “trans” policy will prevail when the case comes before the U.S. Supreme Court. Already the Court has narrowly ruled 5-4 that the transgender policy can continue to be implemented as ongoing litigation proceeds. Citizens should encourage their representatives to oppose H. Res. 124, which rejects the sound Trump/Mattis “trans” policy in favor of imposing the radical, science-denying “trans” ideology on the United States military, the detrimental consequences of which are incalculable.

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The ACLU is lending its full support to the reintroduction of the “Do No Harm Act” to make sure that religious freedom guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution and under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) doesn’t allow Christians and others of faith to deny services to homosexuals and transgenders. Passage of the Do No Harm Act, says the ACLU, will “prevent discrimination under the guise of religious liberty.”

But Matt Barber, founder of Barbwire.com and a constitutional attorney, says the ACLU is really fighting to create a license to discriminate against Christians.

“They presume with no real logic or history in law or any constitutional support that – as Chai Feldblum, President Obama’s appointment to the EEOC, once said – When religious liberty comes into conflict with so-called ‘gay rights’, gays win, Christians lose,” Barber says, paraphrasing Feldblum’s original remark.

He adds that nothing can be further from the truth. As he explains, the First Amendment of the Constitution guarantees the right to the free exercise of religion.

“The ACLU wants enumerated civil rights for these new-fangled gay rights, but these are not rights; they are gay wrongs,” Barber tells OneNewsNow. “These are behaviors and temptations that the Founding Fathers called a crime against nature.”

Barber concludes that imagining the Constitution supports “gay rights” is mind-boggling.

The Do No Harm Act to amend the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was reintroduced to Congress on July 13, 2017, by Democratic Congressmen Joe Kennedy (Massachusetts) and Bobby Scott (Virginia).

This article was originally posted at OneNewsNow.com

Irony ‘o’ the Day: Christian bakers lose their business and are fined $135,000 for exercising their religious liberty by declining to bake a wedding cake for a homosexual anti-wedding, while Muslim truck drivers in Illinois win $240,000 for exercising their religious liberty by declining to deliver alcohol.

As sure as darkest night follows day, liberal legal eagles will start parsing legal language and cherry-picking precedents to explain why the Muslim case is soooo different and the result soooo constitutionally justifiable. But reasonable people using common sense and a dollop of wisdom know that spiritually blind people are doing what spiritually blind people have been doing since Adam and Eve made a really bad snack choice: rejecting truth.

This blindness has resulted too in the suspension of Bremerton High School football coach Joe Kennedy for praying on the football field after games. Meanwhile, gender-dysphoric, cross-dressing teachers like “Karen” Topham at Lake Forest High School or “Dane” Fox at Glenbrook North High School get to keep their jobs.

So in public schools today, the voluntary post-game prayers of a coach are wholly unacceptable, while the cross-dressing and cross-sex hormone-doping of gender-rejecting teachers is acceptable.

It’s even more outrageous, though. Public school faculty members and administrators actually expect students to lie. They expect students to refer to these gender-rejecting teachers by opposite-sex pronouns, something theologian John Piper has said Christians must not do. If Christian teachers and students in public schools truly want to be salt and light, they will refuse to refer to gender-rejecting students and teachers by opposite-sex pronouns.

Who would have thought we would come to a day when teachers—who are government employees and who used to be role models—would encourage students to reject God’s created order, reject reality, reject truth, and participate in deception?

First Amendment religious liberty and speech protections are under assault, and the target is orthodox Christianity. Don’t let the arrogant mockery of liberals dissuade you from publicly asserting this reality. Liberals, who have burnished their rhetorical weapon to a blinding glow, dismiss as outlandish and paranoid claims that Christians are increasingly persecuted in America. While Christians should “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,” (James 1:2), we should also remember that we are actually part of “We the people.” Our Christian forbears fought for the freedom to exercise their religion unencumbered by an oppressive government. Let’s not relinquish that freedom without a fight.

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.
If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own;
but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world,
therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you:
‘A servant is not greater than his master.’
If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”
~John 15: 18-20

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Bremerton High School in Washington state just suspended beloved football coach Joe Kennedy for praying on the football field after games, while gender-dysphoric, cross-dressing teachers like “Karen” Topham at Lake Forest High School in Lake Forest, Illinois or “Dane” Fox at Glenbrook North High School in Northbrook, Illinois get to keep their jobs.

So in public schools today, the voluntary post-game prayers of a Christian coach are wholly unacceptable, while the cross-dressing and cross-sex hormone-doping of gender-rejecting teachers is acceptable.