When coach Joe Kennedy knelt to pray at the 50-yard line after a high school football game, he had no idea of the seismic legal transformation he was triggering. A new film explores his backstory and the Supreme Court decision his actions prompted. He’s an unlikely protagonist for such a momentous development.
The movie Average Joe draws from Kennedy’s book of the same name. Kennedy has a rough background. His mother gave him up for adoption at birth, and his youth included numerous foster homes and group homes. Young Kennedy, frequently fighting, was expelled from six schools, once for putting a laxative in his teacher’s coffee. Filled with anger toward his parents, God, and life, he joined the Marine Corps seeking personal direction. Operation Desert Storm in Kuwait brought danger, rigor, and adaptation.
Married three times, and eventually finding faith as a source of strength and guidance, he wanted to give thanks publicly. Players and coaches, from his team and others, voluntarily joined him for the 30-second postgame prayer. His school district ordered Kennedy to cease. He continued, convinced that religious freedom was a constitutional liberty for which he had fought as a Marine.
The Bremerton School District in Washington state terminated him. Kelly Shackelford and First Liberty Institute, a firm specializing in religious freedom, offered to take his case.
Kennedy had much to learn about the legal system. When someone explained that First Liberty would do his legal work pro bono, Kennedy said he had to Google “pro bono” because “I thought it had something to do with Sonny Bono.”
He especially appreciated that First Liberty defends religious freedom for diverse clients, not just Christians but people of any faith experiencing religious discrimination.
Seven years of lawsuits complicated Kennedy’s marriage to Denise, the school district human resources supervisor. The district required her absence from board meetings discussing Kennedy’s case for conflict-of-interest concerns. Kennedy’s lawyers forbade him from discussing his case with Denise for similar reasons. As you might imagine, marital stress ensued, and the couple often retired to separate sections of their home without speaking.
Denise felt ostracized from friends. Death threats and hate mail didn’t help things. She was angry with Kennedy, the school district, and God. Eventually, a short video from filmmaker Alex Kendrick, whose faith-engaged movie Facing the Giants had inspired Kennedy, encouraged both Denise and Kennedy to reconcile and face the challenges together.
The Supreme Court decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District made it clear that Kennedy was well within his rights to kneel in prayer at the end of the games. From the court’s summary: “The Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment protect an individual engaging in a personal religious observance from government reprisal; the Constitution neither mandates nor permits the government to suppress such religious expression.”
Attorney Shackelford called the decision “the most significant victory for religious freedom in over fifty years.” Why? Because it “overruled another major case, Lemon v. Kurtzman, which has been cited more than seven thousand times in the last fifty years and created hostility toward religious expression across America.”
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In his book, Kennedy reflects on God’s “sense of humor” for making him the “poster boy for prayer.” His complex spiritual journey has included Catholicism, agnosticism, and “whatever I am now”: not a “religious nutjob” or a “Christian superhero” but someone who has a “personal relationship with God.”
Kennedy summarizes what he feels is an improbable divine plan for his life: “[God] took a genuinely bad kid who nobody wanted and did something remarkable and historic through me.” With drama and emotion, this film presents an entertaining, inspiring glimpse into Kennedy’s unlikely journey.
Rusty Wright is an author and lecturer who has spoken on six continents. His film commentaries and columns have been published by newspapers across the country.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
