The court cases that have challenged religion in public buildings have "corrupted" the First Amendment right to free speech by preventing prayer and the Bible in high school locker rooms, Troy E. Schmidt, campus pastor at the First Baptist Church of Windermere, Florida, and a former high school football chaplain told
Newsmax TV's "America's Forum."
After receiving a complaint from the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, the Orange County, Florida, School District earlier this year determined that chaplains could no longer lead prayers in public school programs, reported the
Orlando Sentinel.
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"I was praying with the team out in the field. I was giving them an inspirational message right out of the Bible," Schmidt said Wednesday. "What people like the Freedom From Religion Foundation are saying is, 'Yeah. Read the First Amendment.' But, also read the 60 or so court cases that have followed that have corrupted that original intent."
Schmidt said chaplains are now being called "life coaches" and that public schools are being transformed into "faithless zones" because of the change, adding that they "wanted to, sort of, turn me into was someone that was just being secular."
The First Amendment gives him "the freedom to express my faith," Schmidt said, adding that the school district told him they were "just following what we should have been doing, and enforcing it now."
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