Posted on 06/05/2013 10:54:28 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
PICKENS COUNTY, S.C. – A high school valedictorian from South Carolina ripped up his approved speech on stage this past weekend, and minutes later, delivered the Lord’s Prayer in defiance of the school district’s decision to no longer include prayer at graduation ceremonies.
Roy Costner IV drew loud applause and cheers when he surprised attendees of the Liberty High School graduation at Clemson’s Littlejohn Colliseum on Saturday.
“From the ACLU sending FOIA requests to every district in the state this year after the Chesterfield County case, then the Freedom From Religion Foundation sent us a complaint about religion at board meetings and some other issues as well,” Pickens County School District spokesman John Eby said, the district has been under fire.
Therefore, officials decided to end invocations at all school functions and replace prayer at high school graduations with a moment of silence.
However, Costner wasn’t going to let activist groups kick God out of his graduation. After taking the podium, Costner took his approved speech and ripped it in half for all to see.
“They write their speeches,” Eby told local television station WYFF. “They send them to someone on staff to have them approved.”
After speaking from a separate script for a few minutes, Costner then began to thank his parents for his Christian upbringing.
“Those that we look up to, they have helped carve and mold us into the young adults that we are today,” he said. “I’m so glad that both of my parents led me to the Lord at a young age.”
“And I think most of you will understand when I say…” he continued, surprising the crowd with what came next.
“Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name,” Costner declared. “Thy Kingdom come…”
As attendees realized that Costner was reciting the Lord’s Prayer, applause began to break out in the colliseum. Within seconds, the applause was accompanied by loud cheers.
“Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” he continued. “For Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.”
The crowd again broke into cheers and applause as Costner concluded, and one faculty member sat smiling behind him.
“I think it took a lot of courage to do that,” attendee Logan Gibson told reporters. “People were [supportive] that he stood up for what he believed in.”
Eby said that the district will not be taking any action against Costner.
“The bottom line is, we’re not going to punish students for expressing their religious faiths,” he stated. “He’s a graduate now. There’s nothing we can do about it, even if we wanted to.”
An online video of Costner’s prayer has received over 13,000 hits and more than 300 likes since yesterday.
Woo hoo — I believe!!!
“... he had an “approved speech?”. It is still a great story.”
The “approved speech” is the one that he ripped up - which makes it such a great story.
**********
“We’ve taken care of everything
The words you read,
The songs you sing,
The pictures that give pleasure
To your eye”
Uh oh he will be receiving an audit or get sued by the ACLUeless.
BTTT!!!
Wonderful. Great read. Thanks for posting.
As a high school baseball coach, I’ve had a lot of conversations on the bus as several of the kids coaxed me to talk. They’d sometimes ask obviously silly questions, yet they suck-up information like a sponge. And I’d like to think that in years to come a few of them in evaluating information will remember those long-ago conversations on the bus with Coach Whatshisname.
That I might have made that kind of difference.... Wow!
If there is no God, as they say, then how can there be a right or wrong? Therefore, how can it be wrong to speak out your religious beliefs? All right and wrong are just subjective and up to each individual to decide, and therefore there can be no absolutes to judge!
The atheists are so ridiculously illogical.
Thank you.
You have to use your freedoms or you will lose them.
And you have to push the boundaries as those set to chip them away from you will - and you know they do - plan and work to chip them away from you, any time they think they can.
Call their bluff.
ACLU sends out blanket form threat letter to all of SC, and sent many across the nation, to intimidate schools. What if every single school said “SCREW YOU” and they all had kids who did this. ACLU can’t sue thousands of schools. It would totally backfire on them.
Bravo Roy Costner!!!!
GOD bless you young man. He WILL reward you for standing up for HIS name! Go forth now and do good. Find a decent, Bible believing college and stay out of the liberal hell holes.
If there are no absolutes how can they be sure there’s no God? If you can’t be sure of anything, then everything must be okay and allowed. Then they will squirm into a “well we mean some things are better than others, obviously” and then you’ve got them imposing their subjective, personal beliefs on others, and who are they to say their viewpoint is “better” than others, and who are they to promote their beliefs over anyone elses? They’re happy to supress people they disagree with from promoting their beliefs but have no problem pushing their views on others.
It does stop some of them in their tracks when they realize you’ve got them dead to rights.
No absolutes means everything is relative and subjective.
No absolutes also means nothing can be Right or Wrong.
If everything is relative and subjective, and they claim you can’t push your views on others as “better” or “right”, then NOBODY CAN, because what is “better” or “right” is not based on absolutes but everyone’s personal, subjective beliefs.
Therefore their attempts to STOP people from pushing their views IS hypocritical because it’s based on their own relative, personal beliefs that that is wrong behavior. Since there is no right or wrong, no absolutes, they can’t make that claim, and trying to stop others doing what they think is good, is them forcing THEIR relative beliefs on others.
Boy’s got potential...good start Mr. Costner!
Rights not exercised are lost.
Let’s keep it up, people.
*wink*
That the Boy Scouts of America would have such fortitude!
What would your reaction have been if he was Muslim and delivered a prayer in Arabic?
Roy Costner IV is an American hero. God bless him. Awesome news in the midst of so much distressing news.
There still is hope for America. Americans are going to kneel to the communists without a fight. Valerie Jarrett can kiss my ***.
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