News Release
For Immediate Release: 10.16.24
Contact: John Manning, media@firstliberty.org
Direct: 972-941-4454
Law Firm Defends Coach Deion Sanders’ Right to Invite a Chaplain to Speak to His Football Team
An anti-religious group ignores Supreme Court precedent regarding chaplaincy programs in public settings.
Boulder, CO—First Liberty Institute sent a letter to the University of Colorado Boulder to address the incorrect and threatening letter from an anti-religious group that challenged Coach Deion Sanders’ decision to invite a chaplain to speak to his football team and offer a prayer after a recent game.
You can read the letter here.
“FFRF fumbled the law,” said First Liberty Institute Senior Counsel, Keisha Russell. “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 the University’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. Coach Sanders and the University of Colorado should ignore FFRF’s hail Mary.”
For decades, courts have upheld government chaplaincy programs as constitutional in many different contexts including state legislatures, military chaplaincy programs, prisons, and hospitals. The Supreme Court upholds chaplaincy programs even where the government selects a single chaplain to serve as its routine prayer-giver who prays in accordance with his or her particular faith. In his concurring opinion in Marsh v. Chambers, Justice Alito said, “The tradition reflected in Marsh permits chaplains to ask their own God for blessings of peace, justice, and freedom that find appreciation among people of all faiths. That a prayer is given in the name of Jesus, Allah, or Jehovah, or that it makes passing reference to religious doctrines, does not remove it from that tradition.”
The letter from First Liberty encourages the school to ignore the incorrect letters from the group and continue their right to invite a chaplain to offer encouragement and prayer for the team.
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About First Liberty Institute
First Liberty Institute is a non-profit public interest law firm and the largest legal organization in the nation dedicated exclusively to defending religious freedom for all Americans.
To arrange an interview, contact John Manning at media@firstliberty.org or by calling 972-941-4454.
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