Coach in phony case takes the ball and goes to his actual home

The Bremerton high school coach who sued to get his job back despite his repeated violations of what was at the time clear First Amendment law has quit after one game. One guess as to what state he actually resides in:

After winning a U.S. Supreme Court case to get his coaching job back and igniting a firestorm over praying in public schools, Joe Kennedy resigned only one game into Bremerton High School’s football season.

Kennedy, already back in Pensacola, Fla., where he and his wife have lived for three years, said he emailed his resignation at 4 a.m. Wednesday due to a family health situation and what he described as a deteriorating situation at the Bremerton School District.

“I’m done,” he said.

Kennedy’s resignation is pending School Board approval at a regularly scheduled meeting Thursday, according to a district spokesperson who declined further comment.

His decision was not exactly a surprise.

Kennedy strongly hinted before Friday’s game that he might not stick around for his part-time assistant coaching gig. He said the game, which Bremerton won, was a “fine bow” on top of the Supreme Court victory that cleared the way not only for his return after an eight-year absence but for him to pray on the field. He said he couldn’t think further ahead than that.

Hey, maybe he will run into fellow football coach and Florida Panhandle resident Tommy Tuberville!

This is a fitting end to a case that was built on a lie that a majority of the Supreme Court pretended to believe in a disgraceful opinion that rendered the Establishment Clause a near-nullity without having the courage to state what it was doing explicitly:

The Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District on Monday, overruling a 1971 case laying out how the government must keep its distance from religion.

But Justice Neil Gorsuch’s opinion for himself and his fellow Republican appointees relies on a bizarre misrepresentation of the case’s facts. He repeatedly claims that Joseph Kennedy, a former public school football coach at Bremerton High School in Washington state who ostentatiously prayed at the 50-yard line following football games — often joined by his players, members of the opposing team, and members of the general public — “offered his prayers quietly while his students were otherwise occupied.”

(Justice Brett Kavanaugh did not join a brief section of Gorsuch’s opinion concerning the Constitution’s free speech protections, but Gorsuch otherwise spoke for the Court’s entire Republican majority.)

Because Gorsuch misrepresents the facts of this case, it’s hard to assess many of its implications.

This whole sordid story is an excellent illustration of how the current Supreme Court operates.