Ah, Kentucky!
Head football coach Scott Mooney of Breckinridge County High School is in hot water after he took his team on a Aug. 26 field trip which would include a motivational speaker and a free steak dinner. I guess, the definition of motivational speaker is a loose one…
Multiple parents are now angry with the coach and the school for taking the 20 players on a school-owned bus instead to the coach’s church, where about half of them were then baptized. Surprise! The district’s school superintendent was there and apparently had no issue with this, despite, you know, multiple court rulings regarding public school and religion.
“Nobody should push their faith on anybody else,” said Michelle Ammons, whose son, Robert Coffey, was one of those baptized without her permission or consent.
“He said it would bring the team together,” Robert, a sophomore.
According to the Superintendent Janet Meeks, a fellow member of the church, everything was on the up and up, with parents aware that the trip would include going to a church revival and that attendance was not mandatory.
“None of the players were rewarded for going and none were punished for not going,” Meeks said.
“If players want to attend the coach’s church and get baptized, that’s great,” David Friedman of the ACLU (who is uninvolved in this issue) said. But a coach cannot solicit player attendance at school, he said, noting, “Coaches have great power and persuasion by virtue of their position, and they have to stay neutral.”
Even better, Meeks said had the kids been “7 or 8 or 9” years old she would have sought parental permission, but thought it unnecessary for teens.
The church’s pastor, the Rev. Ron Davis, said he normally requires minors to obtain their parents’ consent to be baptized but, he added in a statement that is all the creepier from a religious leader: “Sometimes 16-year-olds look like 18 years. We did the best we could.” I’ve used that excuse before; the judge NEVER buys it.
Some other parents dispute Ammons’ claims that the church trip was a surprise, but she isn’t convinced. “We felt he [Robert] was brainwashed,” she said.
[The USA Today]
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