General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: My son was forced to pray at a school-sponsored event; sucks to be agnostic in a Christian culture [View all]hunter
(38,311 posts)In this modern world the coach might have had a restraining order filed against her.
One of my fears when my wife and I were married was that my mom would make a scene at our large Catholic wedding. When I was a kid our family was banned from some churches. Teachers and school staff were always solicitous of her religious views which included sitting out the Pledge of Allegiance and avoiding public prayers in any venue but a church community.
We ended up as Quakers because my mom could openly discuss her conversations with God at meetings and everyone would listen respectfully, nod politely no matter how over-the-top she was, and then move on. In religions with a hierarchical structure negative commentary during a Pastor's sermon is not well accepted.
I'm still a little scarred by my mom's disruptive behavior in schools and churches when I was a kid, and it's not a family tradition my siblings and I carried on. But all our kids know that religious faith is something that comes from within and they are free to accept or reject religious beliefs as their own free will guides them. We've raised a fine bunch of heretics, agnostics, and thoughtful atheists. Our family discussions about religion do not turn into the kinds of warfare I experienced as a child where the so-called adults in the family went flying-crockery-knife-wielding insane during religious holidays. I still can't be happy at Christmas... I dread the holiday even though the religious wars are long over as older generations passed on and we began to avoid conservative branches of the family who considered themselves defenders of their One True faiths.
What i did learn from all this was that by the age of ten I could stand up to a hell of a lot of abuse from religious fanatics of all stripes and I was always confident my mom would back me up against any religious authoritarianism because she strongly believes one must accept religion by one's own free will or it means nothing. My mom was like having my very own Holy Hand Grenade in reserve and this made me confident enough that I never had to use her against people like your son's chess coach.
And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. -- Matthew 6:5
School principals and teachers knew I'd be sitting out the Pledge of Allegiance and that my mom had zero tolerance for prayer in school from the first day I was enrolled and it was done because they didn't want to have that uncomfortable face-to-face discussion again.