Coach’s Prayer Constitutional, More Pregnancy Centers Vandalize & Panel Talks About Life after Roe

The post-game, midfield prayer of a high school football coach did not violate the First Amendment’s ban on government establishment of religion, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision Monday (June 27).

The justices decided the Bremerton (Wash.) School District actually violated the First Amendment rights of Joseph Kennedy by removing him as a coach because of its concerns his practice infringed on the Establishment Clause.

“[A] government entity sought to punish an individual for engaging in a brief, quiet, personal religious observance doubly protected by the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment,” Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the court’s opinion. “And the only meaningful justification the government offered for its reprisal rested on a mistaken view that it had a duty to ferret out and suppress religious observances even as it allows comparable secular speech.

“The Constitution neither mandates nor tolerates that kind of discrimination,” Gorsuch wrote in the opinion.

Pregnancy care centers across the United States were told to heighten security over the weekend in light of Friday’s (June 24) Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. Extremist pro-choice groups like Jane’s Revenge took to the internet to encourage people to join in their violent brigades or start their own.

A June 25 post on the Jane’s Revenge website said, “Everyone with the urge to paint, to burn, to cut, to jam: now is the time. Go forth and manifest the things you wish to see. Stay safe, and practice your cursive.”

Attacks on pregnancy support centers were reported over the weekend in Longmont, Colo. and Lynchburg, Va. The centers serve local pregnant women by providing tests, care, counseling, support, and essentials that carry them through their term and even into the postpartum period.

“In the post-Roe moment we are now in, these pro-life pregnancy clinics are even more so on the front lines of ministry to vulnerable women and families in crisis.

We must continue praying for their endurance in this season and support them with our time and treasure, just as churches have always done,” said Brent Leatherwood, acting president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

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You can hear a panel featuring Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, Dana Hall McCain from Wiregrass Hope Group in Dothan, Alabama, Bart Barber, SBC president, Brent Leatherwood, acting president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and Jonathan Howe, VP for Communications of the SBC Executive Committee at Baptist Press.

They discuss the implications of the Dobbs’ Supreme Court case and how churches can continue to support local pregnancy support centers in light of it.