College Football Fights for Its Chaplains
The American Center for Law and Justice has sent out a legal letter supported by 81,500 Americans defending football team chaplains from the Freedom From Religion Foundation's claims that they're imposing their Christian beliefs on players. The ACLJ argued that if atheist professors are not considered to be posing an issue to students' rights, neither should sports chaplains.
"University students understand that they will be exposed to a variety of religious and nonreligious views on campus. Sports team chaplaincies pose no threat to the rights of university students to hold their own religious views, any more than does graduation prayer, or for that matter, a professor's avowed atheism," the conservative law group wrote in its letter.
"The Establishment Clause does not compel the expulsion of sports team chaplains who serve voluntarily to meet the spiritual needs of student athletes, any more than the Establishment Clause requires the razing of university chapels that exist to meet similar needs."
