It sits in my office but can fit in my shirt pocket. These days, I read it more than a new bride checks a cookbook or a new car buyer checks the owner’s manual. What is it?
It’s not that I don’t know what’s in that little 3 by 5 booklet–it’s that I’m incredulous that so many people either don’t know or simply ignore that booklet—that small copy of the U.S. Constitution…
Whether you read 33 small booklet pages or a few large ones…or see the original parchment online, you will be amazed by the simple yet comprehensive nature of our legal backbone.
Let’s start with the first amendment which is pretty basic. We are free to speak our mind and practice our religion. First paragraph of the first amendment. Not really open to debate. And yet, these days, free speech comes at a price. In this cancel culture, having the wrong opinion can get you fired. And when you are fired for not one but two things that are protected by our constitution, things that generations of Americans died for, it is just inexplicable. But it happened to Joe Kennedy. Several years ago, Joe Kennedy, an ex-marine who risked his life to protect the constitution and the freedoms it guarantees was fired from his job as the Football Coach at Bremerton High in Bremerton Washington. Now a 3-7 record after a 2-8 previous debacle might have cost another coach his job, but that was not the deciding factor here. Joe Kennedy. was fired for exercising his constitutional right to pray and did so with his players and opposing players after every game. Not every player participated but those who did welcomed the chance, one of them called the post-game gatherings on the 50-yard line “magical.”
In a classic example of political correctness run amok here’s what the district wrote in first suspending Coach Joe Kennedy…and later firing him.
The post-game midfield prayer quote: “poses as a genuine risk that the District will be liable for violating the federal and state constitutional rights of students or others.”
Say what? Allowing a citizen to exercise his constitutionally protected right while allowing others to freely join him could violate the constitutional rights of others?
Mmm…no. That’s as wrong as wrong can be. And if school officials believe that horse dropping of a paragraph, imagine what kind of history and civics they’re teaching the kids.
Fast forward to 2021, after lower courts sided with the school district, attorneys for Joe Kennedy appealed, and a federal judge ruled in favor of the school district. It was Joe Kennedy’s last chance to get his job back. The Constitution is always open to interpretation, but the Bill of Rights is plain and simple. The view here is that the school and the courts violated Joe Kennedy’s rights in an asinine quest to protect the rights of young atheists, who probably don’t know the difference between the First Amendment and a First Down.
By the way, my little copy of the constitution was given to me by Senator Barbara Boxer, so I will give her the benefit of the doubt as to her left leaning colleagues around the country. Read it. Then read it again.
Remember it’s not a cafeteria menu, but with respect to the Bill of Rights, one restaurant axiom is appropriate.
No Substitutions please!