The US Supreme Court expands religious rights by protecting that officials can pray in public

Former coach Joseph Kennedy kneels before the headquarters of the Supreme Court on April 25. WIN MCNAMEE (AFP)

The conservative turn of the US Supreme Court is advancing steadily.

After the controversial rulings on the use of weapons in public and the one that has repealed the right to abortion, published last week, the high court has agreed this Monday with the coach of a high school soccer team, who was fired for kneel and pray in midfield after games.

Joseph Kennedy, who between 2008 and 2015 served as an assistant coach for the public high school team in Bremerton (Washington), had the constitutional right to pray on the field of play after games, the Supreme Court has ruled, by six votes in favor (the six conservative judges) and three against, of the three liberals.

The score is repeated that on Thursday knocked down a restrictive gun control law in the State of New York and, a day later,

, which had protected abortion rights in the country since 1973.

With this sentence, the Supreme extends the guarantees of the First Amendment, which enshrines freedom of expression and belief, and gives free rein to the public manifestation of faith by government officials, after decades of contention between the sphere public and private.

For eight years, Kennedy used to pray after games, often accompanied by players.

He also did it in the locker room, leading the prayer himself, a practice that he later abandoned and that he did not claim before the Supreme Court.

The reason for Kennedy's lawsuit was having been suspended in 2015 by the educational center, which urged him to end prayers on the court for giving "a show" that attracted the media.

Kennedy's lawsuit has become a cause célèbre for the mobilization of the most conservative Christians, also spurred by the reversal of

and behind which many see a theocratic agenda encouraged for decades and catapulted by the presidency of Republican Donald Trump.

The ruling, written by Judge Neil Gorsuch, rejected the institute's view that Kennedy's on-field prayers and homilies could be coercive of other students, or a government endorsement of a particular religion, which would violate one of the clauses of the First Amendment.

With sentences like the one issued this Monday, the Supreme Court advances in the demolition of the limits between church and State.

Just a week ago, the high court ruled in favor of two Christian families who denounced discrimination towards religious schools in a scholarship program in the State of Maine, another blow to the conservative drift.

As in the Maine case, in the case of the Bremerton institute, the judges annulled the ruling of a lower instance, from which Kennedy's suspension was derived for defying the orders received from the center, which proposed him to pray in private.

The coach, a public employee, refused.

Gorsuch has written that the “retaliation” against Kennedy “stems from a mistaken view of the duty to suppress religious observance while allowing comparable secular discourse.

The Constitution neither mandates nor tolerates that type of discrimination.”

In recent months, the Supreme Court, the fundamental legacy of former President Trump, has agreed with the demands of Christian groups or individuals, in successive twists to the letter of the First Amendment.

In May, he ruled that Boston had violated the rights of a religious group by not allowing it to place a flag bearing the sign of the cross at City Hall, under whose flagpole the group was holding a public event.

In March, in a ruling signed by eight of the judges and only one dissent, the high court ruled that the State of Texas should grant a death row inmate a request that his Christian pastor lay hands on him and pray next to him loudly during the execution.

Subscribe here to the  EL PAÍS América

 and receive all the key information on current affairs in the region