Discussion for article #228268
Religious exception? That’s bizarre. Allow displays or ban them — don’t create arbitrary categories of privilege.
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Didn’t matter. God was listening and the Patriots got crushed by the Chiefs.
Am I reading too much into it that maybe God sides with the indigenous?
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oh boy this is going to be fun. I will be closely watching,
so I don’t miss it, usually I don’t last further than the first christianist
posturing. Anyway I can’t wait for the first Pastafarianist’ first
touchdown. I think it’s a dead-nuts certainty there will be some
sort of celebration, and in light of all the christianist horseshit
being forced on them this could be payback time. One can only hope.
Unless some idiot comes up with the gem "get rid of any and all
fookin religion in sports and in government.’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster).
“There is no institution in our land, whether it is a Fortune 500 company or a governmental body, who would retain their “CEO”, in this case NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, after a significant series of missteps in which the truth was hidden from the fans and press at every turn.” Hmmm. Not sure I agree with that one. Wall Street comes to mind.
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I agree with everyone–including the player in question–who said he got flagged for the slide that he did in the end zone before the prayer. It’s unfortunate, but I don’t think it was an attempt to ban his religious speech. They should’ve swallowed the whistle once they saw he was praying, but there was a part of the display that violated their standard for unsportsmanlike behavior separate from the prayer.
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There is a time and place for everything. Praying on the football field is not the time or the place. The essence of prayer is holding humanity first, not using it as if it were a tool for personal gain. That being said, taking a discriminatory stance against what is no less than a lack of reverence is just stupid. Ban blasphemy.
Personally, I’ve always thought it ridiculous (and presumptuous) for an athlete to assume that God is fixing the game in the player’s favor—which is necessarily the underlying logic of these on-field displays. (Otherwise, why would you thank Him for your touchdown/goal/basket/etc?)
In this instance, however, it’s possible that the referee in question simply wasn’t familiar with the sujood and mistook if for one of the many non-religious “celebration” poses players have devised over the years. I’ve seen the sujood, like many Westerners, but in the context of a football game I wouldn’t have immediately interpreted it as the sujood.
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What a load of horseshit. He was flagged for sliding halfway across the endzone, not praying. Personally I think the celebration penalties are dumb and religious exceptions even dumber, but whatever. Fact remains when a player slides like that in obvious celebration it’s a penalty.
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apparently, the chiefs’ coach thought the flag was for the slide preceding the kneeling, and told him to knock it off. interestingly, the ref who actually made the call has yet to be heard from, and he only called an “unsportsmanlike conduct” penalty, without specifying exactly what part of it was “unsportsmanlike”. at this point, I’m not convinced it was the kneeling that got the flag, that’s just the most obvious part of his entire post-TD act.
My question is did the official even recognize it as a prayer? That’s the first time I’ve seen an NFL player do it and it took me a few minutes to realize that he was praying after the knee slide. I don’t think there was any attempt to stifle his religious expression, I think the official was just ignorant of what he was seeing.
By the way, the knee slide is the coolest celebration in sports and should totally be allowed. Prayer or not.