BREMERTON – Two weeks ago, Bremerton High School’s assistant football coach Joe Kennedy was placed on paid suspension for his prayers on the 50-yard line immediately following football games.

The story began almost two months ago, however, when the issue of him praying with the team was brought to the school board’s attention, sparking a heated conversation about religious freedom and separation of church and state.

This issue has garnered national attention, inviting letters to the editor of the Bremerton Patriot from all over the country. A Texas-based organization provided their legal representation to Kennedy. The Satanic Temple of Seattle announced that an invitation from a student or teacher from the Bremerton School District would bring them across the Sound to perform a Satanic invocation on the football field, should Kennedy continue to be allowed to disobey district policy in flagrant disregard for the board’s directions for him to stop.

But on Oct. 28, the day before the Satanic Temple was set to visit the football game, Kennedy was put on paid administration leave. The satanists still showed up to the game, to much fanfare, but they didn’t stay long.

On Nov. 12, the school board held their first meeting since that game Oct. 29. The room was, unsurprisingly, packed. The public comment section at the beginning of the meeting was, predictably, long.

More than an hour was spent discussing one thing, and one thing only. Twelve people spoke, both for and against the decision to place Kennedy on leave.

“He (Kennedy) deserves to be fired and banned from any further work in the district,” said Bremerton resident Terence Connors.

Deb Shaw followed, saying that as a veteran, she understands terms of employment clearly, “and when one accepts employment, one is accepting rules of that employment.”

She said, “You (Kennedy) are breaking your own oath. That is not acceptable. That is not acceptable for an employee, any employee, of the Bremerton School District.”

Jeremy McGinnis spoke next, suggesting the board made the wrong decision suspending Kennedy because public expressions of faith are constitutionally protected. From wearing a Yamaka to a hijab to, yes, bowing your head in silent prayer on the football field, are public expressions of faith the district has no right to forbid.

“What message does that send?” McGinnis said, of the suspension. “What does it teach (the students) of their rights, and what does it teach them of the Constitution?

“Equality is rooted in equal freedom,” he added. “We cannot take the freedom away from one in order to secure it for another.”

David Hatzenbuehler pointed out that the Constitution does not state that church and state should be separated, just that “Congress shall make no laws establishing religion, nor the free exercise thereof.”

“When people stand up and exercise their faith … and others join them voluntarily, we should support them,” Hatzenbuehler said. “To suppress that is really standing in violation of the very principles our country was founded on.

“I think we’ve crossed a line here,” he went on. “I’m not standing up here as a guy that’s advocating a religion or a church. I’m advocating a person.”

Bremerton resident Leah Aaro told a story of how this situation has harmed her and her family.

“When my son entered the school to play football in the eighth grade, he came to me and said, ‘Mom, they’re praying. This is not OK with me,’ ” Aaro said. “I said, ‘Do what you need to do.’ “

Aaro said her son, who is now the captain of the high school football team, decided to “just deal with it,” and did so, silently.

“Until it became a Facebook event,” Aaro said.

After media attention caused the issue to be front and center in many minds, Aaro said her son chose to stand on the sidelines while the rest of his team joined Kennedy in prayer, “to finally show that he hasn’t been OK with it for years.”

One commenter at the meeting, Kathryn Townsend, made a point of saying that while students should not be “coerced into religion,” high-school-aged children should already have the tools to defend against such influence from their teachers, coaches and, in the future, employers.

But Melanie Malcolm said, “As a teenager, you’re still internalizing things and you’re still making your own decisions.” She said that someone like Kennedy, a mentor and authority figure in the students’ lives, “will lead by example.”

“What you guys (the school board) are doing, I believe, is protecting the school, protecting the district from legal problems, protecting the students from, let’s be honest, indoctrination,” Malcolm said.

Mary McKenzie, a teacher in the school district, said, “Just because they are in high school … doesn’t mean they are less vulnerable.”

“If someone noticed that I crossed these same lines as a teacher, it would be incumbent on the district to correct these mistakes,” McKenzie said. “The person in question (Kennedy) decided to disregard all of that and make his stand.

“By his flagrant disregard, he’s demonstrated that his personal rights are more important than … the rights of all the students.”

But, on the other side of the argument is Kennedy’s right to freely express his religion.

Autumn Bennett said, “The more we limit speech and expressions of faith … the more we will teach our children to become oversensitive or to have a heightened sense of fear for expressing their faith.”

Kaeley Triller Haver said, “You can’t teach tolerance by silencing opinions.”

Triller Haver also said that other aspects of the district openly supports either Christianity or Atheism, from Christmas trees on holiday fliers to students teaching evolution with no allowance for creationism.

“One of your expressed goals of your students this year is to help them attain confidence and autonomy,” Triller Haver said. “(But) your message isn’t diversity, it’s conformity. It’s not freedom, it’s fear.”

Kennedy, represented by the Liberty Institute, has begun steps toward initiating a lawsuit. The first step, according to his lawyers, was filing a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. If the EEOC decides not to pursue the issue on a federal level, Kennedy and his lawyers would be free to file a discrimination lawsuit against the Bremerton School District.