Joe Kennedy, the Washington state assistant high school football coach who was fired for praying before the Supreme Court and then won a victory at the U.S. Supreme Court, says God uses the “unlikely” people to accomplish His purposes.
“I don't know why God would do something like that. No one knows,” said Kennedy, an 18-year U.S. Marine Corps veteran who coached the football team at Bremerton High School in Bremerton, Washington. Christian Post Reporter and podcaster Ian M. Jutti was interviewed as part of a live event for CP’s podcast and article series, “Politics in the Pews,” held at Fellowship Church last week.
“And I just didn't seem like the kind of person that God would want to do anything with.”
Kennedy was fired in 2015 for praying at the 50-yard line of the football field after a game. Despite losing seven times in lower courts, he ultimately prevailed when the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Kennedy's favor in 2022. The decision effectively overturned Lemon v. Kurtzman, a 1971 Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutional right of public school employees to hold brief, personal, private prayer and established the three-step “Lemon test.”
The Lemon test stated that government may intervene in religion only if it serves a secular purpose, does not suppress or promote religion, and does not result in undue involvement of church and state.
“This is something I never wanted, never asked for,” Kennedy said, “and all this time I've been holding back, saying, 'God, I don't want to go through this.' But God does the most amazing things for fools like me.”
“So just imagine what God can do with you guys!” he continued. “This is so amazing. If God can choose me to do something as amazing as changing our country with religious freedom, just imagine what we as individuals, groups, businesses and churches can do.”
“We can change the whole of America. […] “Just do what you have to do and you'll get back on track. It's as simple as that,” he added.
Kennedy also said the first complaint against him was Local Satanic Groups.
Reports say CBS NewsIn 1970, members of the Seattle chapter of the Satanic Temple showed up at the football stadium in protest of Kennedy, arguing that public prayer should also be a reason to summon the Devil on the field after games.
“It will definitely be a theatrical production — there will be robes, incense and gongs,” chapter president Lilith Starr said at the time. “There are many students and teachers at Bremerton High School who feel they are not represented on the football field.”
Kennedy told Jutti that students resisted the Satanists, chanting “Yes!”
“A kid jumped up on a rock with a cross on it, and the whole school district was yelling, 'Yes, yes,'” Kennedy recalled. “That story is not fiction.”
Despite the “victory,” Kennedy said he was “terrified” by the possible decline of religious freedom in the United States.
Before the incident, the football coach admitted he “didn't understand how much power was given to the judicial branch.”
He pointed out how his case had lost seven consecutive times before finally reaching the Supreme Court.
“And that's what scares me,” he said. “I was really scared.”
Photo credit: ©Facebook/Coach Joe Kennedy
