Fireworks sparked during a Fox News debate Thursday night over whether or not Clemson University is violating the Constitution for its alleged “Christian worship,” which has one atheist group up in arms.
Eric Bolling, who guest hosted “Hannity,” was joined by Fox News contributor Kirsten Powers and American Atheists’ Nick Fish for a spirited discussion about a complaint the Freedom From Religion Foundation lodged against Clemson University and its football coach, Dabo Swinney.
Swinney came under fire by the group for the alleged religious influence he has on his players. The Freedom From Religion Foundation accused Swinney and members of the Tigers’ coaching staff of distributing Bibles, scheduling devotionals and employing a team chaplain — violations of players’ First Amendment rights.
“Christian worship seems interwoven into Clemson’s football program,” a letter the Wisconsin-based group sent to Clemson reads. “We are concerned that this commingling of religious and athletics results, not from student initiative, but rather from the attitudes of unconstitutional behaviors of the coaching staff.”
While the Clemson community has rallied around their coach and beloved football program, Bolling sparred with Powers and Fish over what is deemed appropriate for a taxpayer-funded coaching position and university.
“This isn’t about football players having or not having God,” Fish told Bolling. “This is about a coach, who during recruitment visits, has said, ‘I’m a Christian and if you don’t like that you can go somewhere else.’ He also said, ‘My first job is to pray.’ That’s not religious intolerance to say that this man is not behaving appropriately. There’s a constitutional problem here when a taxpayer-funded position … is using his time to promote one religion over another.”
Bolling tried to make the distinction that because Swinney is discussing his religion on “his time,” he can support the religion of his choosing.
But Powers disagreed and said that while she takes her religious faith very seriously, she did believe he was “crossing a line.”
As talk turned to the issue of Clemson employing a team chaplain — which many professional sports team do — Fish argued such clubs are privately owned and therefore given the right to do so. A public, taxpayer-funded team, though, is violating the Constitution.
And Powers agreed.
“I’m sympathetic to the view that it could be, it could make people who are not Christian uncomfortable,” she said.
The USA Today columnist also argued that many Christians have the opportunity to spread their faith in their private lives and wondered why many use their official capacities do promote Christianity.
Watch Bolling and his panelists discuss the complaint against Clemson below.
