Deion Sanders Stands Against Atheist Activists as Right to Prayer Attacked
By Movieguide® Contributor
A group of atheist activists wants to stop University of Colorado head football coach Deion Sanders from using a team chaplain.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation sent a letter to Colorado’s Executive Vice Chancellor Patrick T. O’Rourke because of “Sanders’ decision to invite chaplain Pastor E. Dewey Smith to speak to the football team and offer a prayer after their win against Baylor University on September 22,” CBN reported.
The letter reads:
Coach Sanders’ team is full of young and impressionable student-athletes who would not risk giving up their scholarship, giving up playing time, or losing a good recommendation from the coach by speaking out or voluntarily opting out of his unconstitutional religious activities—even if they strongly disagree with his beliefs. Coaches exert great influence and power over student athletes and those athletes will follow the lead of their coach. Using a coaching position to promote Christianity amounts to unconstitutional religious coercion.
The University of Colorado must again take action to protect its student athletes’ First Amendment rights. Coach Sanders needs to understand that he was hired to coach football, not to force student-athletes to engage in his preferred religious practices. He must cease infusing the football program with Christianity. We request notification in writing of the actions the University is taking to ensure that Coach Sanders will cease proselytizing student-athletes for good.
Sanders won’t back down from sharing his faith with his team, though, and the First Liberty Institute, a nonprofit legal organization, is defending his right to pray with the athletes.
First Liberty Institute Senior Counsel Keisha Russell said, “FFRF fumbled the law. The United States has a robust and widely recognized tradition of both public prayer and chaplain programs dating back to the Continental Congress in 1776.”
“This rich precedent demonstrates that CU’s program joins the long-standing American tradition that welcomes the participation of chaplains within a variety of America’s public spaces — or, as the case may be, even a locker room,” she wrote, noting that based on Supreme Court precedent, “CU’s chaplaincy program would very likely be upheld as constitutional.”
First Liberty Institute urges O’Rourke to ignore the letter from the FFRF.
“We are confident that CU is well within its right to invite a chaplain into the locker room with its college athletes,” the First Liberty Institute responded.
READ MORE: DEION SANDERS SAYS ONLY JESUS WILL ‘SATISFY YOUR HEART’