Re: Dabbo under attach from Freedom from Religion foundation
It is my humble opinion that too many people have been successful at proselytizing for their comfort. I have never heard a good argument from an atheist or agnostic as to why it is a big deal. If I am unable to convince someone of my beliefs, I dust off my feet and walk away. It seems that they are taking on inquisition tactics. You try to present your belief system, you get sued.
If Dabo were making this mandatory, or there was subtle or not so subtle pressure I get it. I don't see evidence that this is the case.
From a my perspective proselytizing is required. if I was standing in the middle of the street not paying attention and a truck was coming I would want to be at least warned if not knocked out of the way. If I still stood there and got run over, that's what I wanted. I don't see the difference.
There are two issues here really. The first being that as a state employee in a public college, the coach of the football team has a position different than that of another human being on relatively the same level of the organization. Imagine you are at your place of employment, and your boss chooses to have a daily morning prayer meeting. You have the choice to participate in that meeting, but your boss and your coworkers definitely make notice of the fact when you choose to not attend. Don't you think it would be difficult to believe that perceptions and chances of advancement were not tied at least indirectly to your participation in these daily team meetings?
Now imagine as if that same boss, and coworkers were Muslim. Makes it a little more difficult to accept the office culture carte blanche than when you thought they were Christian.
The rub of this whole thing is that you have impressionable kids, who may or may not believe, having to decide on whether something that is labeled as optional, is truly optional with regards to their career at Clemson. If they don't participate in the prayers, does that affect their playing time? Will their coaches decide that they don't want to truly be a team player? They have made a commitment, possibly knowing the culture, maybe not, that can keep them locked in place for a minimum of three years, and if things don't go well, potentially force them to leave Clemson and suffer the "sit out a year penalty."
The second is that for every Atheist or Agnostic that chooses to pick up the fight for the poor oppressed kids who just want to be free from religion but don't know it yet, there are Christians who do the same for the poor oppressed kids who don't know enough about Jesus and if only they could be made to see the light they would understand. So while you may be perfectly willing to divorce the notion of prayer and value to the team as a player, can you say that every member of the Clemson staff is willing to do the same? I am personally a pretty live and let live kinda guy. As long as you don't push your beliefs on me or my family, I will respect yours and do the same.
I do however have a problem with your analogy with regards to the proselytizing perspective. You see a bus, you believe there is a bus, and in your mind that bus truly is going to run over some poor guy. However in that guys world, there are no busses to be attempting to run him over in the first place. If you pushed him out of the way, all he is going to do is get ticked off that you got his pants dirty pushing him out of the way from something which in his mind is completely imaginary.