Weighing the needs of one

Maybe you’ve heard this story.
Washington State high school football coach Joe Kennedy has drawn national attention for his post-game practice of kneeling at the 50-yard line and praying, often with students and other coaches.
Kennedy who was placed on leave from Bremerton High School for publicly praying with students said he believes in giving glory to God after games.
He explained that it was a longstanding tradition, but apparently an administrator complained to the principal, leading to Kennedy’s season-long suspension when he refused to stop the post-game prayers.
Kennedy’s attorney, Kelly Shackelford, explained that this comes down to an incredible misconception of a law.
He said that banning prayer is “explicit religious discrimination,” which violates the First Amendment and federal employment laws.
“It’s inexplicable, what’s happening,” Shackelford said. “They said that he is not allowed to ever visibly show any religion or he’ll be fired.”
I could go on and on about separation of church and state, and the way Kennedy could go about this and not be fired, but I’m not going to.
The reason is we’ve gone slap-dab crazy in this country. We’re too scared that someone is actually going to have an influence on young people’s lives through the exercise of their own God-given rights that we do things like this.
Would they rather Kennedy be like the deputy sheriff and haul some of the kids across the football fields?
Would they rather these kids be exposed to whatever in the heck causes enough loneliness and such that they pick up guns and go hunting in classrooms?
The only thing I truly learned from my high school football coach was several swear words I had never heard before. But still, I listened to my coach. What if my coach had been like Kennedy, I wonder?
Isn’t Kennedy’s kneeling for a few moments of prayer, silent or otherwise, somehow, someway preferable?
Nowhere did I see or read that he coerced the players to follow suit. Nowhere did I see where he grabbed players and forced them to the 50. Nowhere.
Sunday when a New Orleans Saints player broke his leg on a run near the goal-line, Saints and Giants players knelt in prayer.
They do so after the game as well. Now, I know there are clear differences in a public school football coach and professional football players doing this. The biggest perhaps is the impact they might have on young lives. I saw a photo this week of a high school football player in Mississippi kneeling in prayer on the football field as an injured teammate was attended to.
We’ve reached a stage where the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many, and that is simply wrong. That’s not the way we go about business, or shouldn’t be.
Because one person, or 20 persons, complain even if they are not made to do something shouldn’t be the reason something is forbidden, certainly something as important as prayer.
It shouldn’t be, but increasingly it is.
Billy Turner is a pastor of the United Methodist denomination and a retired journalist.