Judges kick football coach who prayed with students in the balls

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A New Jersey school board was within its rights to tell a football coach he cannot kneel and bow his head as members of his team have a student-led pre-game prayer, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

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The judges agreed that the East Brunswick Board of Education's policy barring school staff from joining in student-led prayer was constitutional.

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In 2005, school officials received complaints that he was leading prayers and asked him to stop participating.

He sued the school board seeking to be allowed to bow his head and kneel when students led their own prayers. A lower-court judge found that should be allowed.

But Judge D. Michael Fisher wrote in the lead opinion Tuesday that Borden's past action of leading the prayers made his head-bowing seem inappropriate: "A reasonable observer would conclude that he is continuing to endorse religion when he bows his head during the pre-meal grace and takes a knee with his team in the locker room while they pray."

Meanwhile, Judge Theodore McKee wrote that kneeling or head-bowing would look like an endorsement of religion even to someone who did not know the coach had led prayers in the past.

And the third judge, Maryann Trump Barry, wondered what a coach should do in Borden's position. "Surely he would not be required to keep his head erect or turn his back or stand and walk away," she wrote. "Any such requirement would evidence a hostility to religion that no one would intend."

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Borden's lawyer, Ronald Riccio, said he would ask the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the case to clarify what he says is murky law - especially given Tuesday's decision - about student-led prayer.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/new...0,1497126.story

[Ban Hammer 13,354]

as long as there are tests in school, there will be prayer.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

as long as there are tests in school, there will be prayer.

you mean as long as there are tests and poorly prepared students.....

which, of course, is to say always. i mean, who the heck can prepare well for each and every goddamn test over the space of over a decade