Supreme Court rules high school football coach had constitutional right to pray on field

The US Supreme Court’s conservative majority has ruled in favour of a high school football coach who gathered his team to pray at 50-yard lines after games, a case that could have wider impacts to First Amendment protections that prevent the government from imposing religious views.

A ruling on 27 June from Justice Neil Gorsuch argues that “there is no conflict between the constitutional commands of the First Amendment in this case” and only the “mere shadow” of a conflict, “a false choice premised on a misconstruction of the Establishment Clause” of the First Amendment that prohibits government intervention in religion.

”Respect for religious expressions is indispensable to life in a free and diverse Republic,” according to the ruling. “Here, a government entity sought to punish an individual for engaging in a personal religious observance, based on a mistaken view that it has a duty to suppress religious observances even as it allows comparable secular speech. The Constitution neither mandates nor tolerates that kind of discrimination.”

This is a developing story