Thank you for your powerful words: “I’ve never seen anyone punished.” They really struck me because we seldom if ever do get to “see” such things. I’ve never seen anyone punished and yet, I’ve studied these right to pray and related free speech cases since high school and know the issue is one the courts have grappled with for at least 80 years (though probably longer). Why have we never seen anyone punished? Because public prayer is now rather uncommon and unusual but that wasn’t the case in 1962 when the Supreme Court first banned it.

Take this case: the coach started praying in 2008 and for literally years, no one complained and people continued to join him until 2015 — seven years later — when a few complaints led to his firing. If he had simply accepted the ruling of his superiors to stop praying in 2015 few to anyone would have known about it. But now it’s 2022, another seven years before it gets to SCOTUS and we finally learn of it because it’s gone all the way to the high court. It really is amazing how long it takes for issues like these to wind through the courts.