Football Chaplains Under Fire
The nation's largest secularist organization is renewing its effort to pressure some of the nation's most popular college football teams to get rid of their chaplains, arguing that coaches violate students' First Amendment rights by instituting chaplaincy programs.
Last August, the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation sent letters to a number of public colleges and universities telling them that allowing Christian chaplains to minister to their football teams establishes a favoritism toward Christianity and coerces non-Christian athletes to take part so that their standing with coaches and teammates won't be diminished.
The organization, which advocates for a strict separation of church and state, released an in-depth report titled "Pray to Play" last year, highlighting a number of public colleges that have chaplaincy programs and schools that use public funds to fly chaplains to away games, provide hotel rooms for them and their families, and give them per-diem payments.
