Posted on 06/19/2006 2:02:05 PM PDT by Indy Pendance
A local high school graduation ended with roars of protest after school officials turned the microphone off right in the middle of one of the valedictorian's speeches. The microphone cut out after the valedictorian at Foothill High made reference to God.
The family says the District's decision isn't fair. Brittney McComb says she's a straight A student, number one in her class, and is headed to Biola University in the fall.
Brittney attributes all of her success to God. Trouble is, she tried to explain that during her speech which the school district said they told her beforehand was a no-no.
"God's love is so great."
This was part of the speech that Brittney McComb says she so wanted to give on graduation night. But because it did have numerous references to God and Jesus Christ, the school district cut off the mic, leaving her practically silent. That's when many people stood up and booed, showing their support.
Now, the day after, McComb says she got nothing but support from her fellow students. "All of my classmates came up to me and were so happy. They told me they loved me and I said God's awesome because I couldn't have done it without him."
McComb says the district reviewed her speech beforehand, just like everyone else. But she says they sent it back with the last half chopped off.
"They said it was offensive, it identifies a particular religion," explains McComb. "I really think it's free speech; we're American, we should be able to handle that."
We asked her father about that.
Rob McMillan: We have freedom of speech, but what about separation of church and state?
Michael McComb: They brought that up, and they say they were going to give us some documentation to prove why she could say that in her speech.
They said the documentation was ambiguous. That was when Brittney said she took it upon herself to go ahead and give her speech as written, no matter what the consequences might be.
The district tells News 3 there are guidelines for what valedictorians can and can't say, but they didn't get back to us on our request for an interview. A district spokesperson told us they were not trying to avoid interviews on this subject and that multiple graduation ceremonies prevented top administrators from giving us an interview.
The school district maintains it was simply following procedure at the Foothill Graduation.
We're told students are required to submit their speeches in writing ahead of time and they're told if they deviate from the script at all, their microphones will be cut off. The district maintains that's exactly what happened in this case.
This is the kind of hypocritical two faces liberal swill I am used to. This girl did nothing wrong, and had she been a liberal talking about how bad Bush was and how immoral the war was, or if she was a muslim and if she was going to mention allah or muhammed, no one would have said boo, even though that would have offended most people there, but what she did want to say would have offended no one except these radical aclu and school district liberals who take offence at the expense of others right to free speech.
Bottom line, this is further evidence that the 1st Amendment and freedom of speech does NOT apply to Christians and conservatives, as interpreted by liberals and the msm. If this girl was some lib or a muslim she wouldn't have been silenced and sensored. This is nothing short of religious persecution and a violation of her 1st Amendment rights. The Constitution that I hold in my hand right now says nothing about seperation of church and state, but it does say that Congress shall make no law which establishes religion, which this girl talking about her personal experiences did not to. There is also not to be any sensoring of speech, and that's what this was. The AntiAmerican Communist Liberal Union strikes again.
And like you said, when this gets to the SCOTUS at some point, Roberts and Alito along with Thomas and Scalia will lead the charge to defeat this. And the sooner Stevens or Ginsburg retire and Bush replaces them with another Constitutinal conservative Judge, the better.
Imagine if the valedictorian talked about Che or some other person, or invoked Wiccan. That's be perfectly acceptable.
"references to God and Jesus Christ, the school district cut off the mic, leaving her practically silent. That's when many people stood up and booed, showing their support."
"Now, the day after, McComb says she got nothing but support from her fellow students. "All of my classmates came up to me and were so happy."
We all remember high school,
I hope the left keeps doing this, theatrical censorship like this will make the students doubt all PC stuff and turn Christian students into a group worth identifying with.
Cutting the mic effectively negates the speech. It's the girl's point of view, for crying out loud. Are you really going to align yourself with the North Koreans who are obviously running the graduations?
The administrators should be charged, found guilty of infringing on the students 1st Amendment rights and jailed. While in jail they should be forced to write 10,000 times, I am not God. When they are through they can be released.
Exactly. The aclu operates in violation of real free speech for ALL, and uses only parts of the Constitution to prop up their unconstitutional positions, and to defend their sensoring of Americans like this girl.
This isn't much different from giving Jerry Falwell or the Pope a mic so they might deliver a speech at the graduation.
That would be an obvious endorsement.
What if she were to offer words of peace in the name of Islam? What would be done then? Would her microphone be cut off? What if she were to endorse multicultural pap? Would her microphone be cut off? What if she were to proclaim global warming the greatest threat to mankind? Would her microphone be cut off? What if she were to demand more foreign aid to third world countries? Would her microphone be cut off? What if she were to endorse the positions of Michael Berg and Cindy Sheehan? Would her microphone be cut off? Oh, it never stops, does it? Endless bias by those who should know better!
We'd know for sure she is a freeper!
And she wasn't prohibited from exercising her religion.
She's isn't, however, granted free use of public resources to spread her gospel to a captive audience.
Okay, who the hell put jim robinson in charge with the right to ban posters and delete posts denying them freedom of speech ?
It does in a public forum when you've been invited to speak. Turning off the microphone is government censorship of 1st Amendment speech. Anybody supporting that crap because they have problems with theists would do well to find a new country with a different constitution.
Well, toward the end of his speech, the entire group of more than 200 all sneezed simultaneously, at which point the valedictorian responded..."God Bless You.....God Bless all of you!"
All I can say is .....Brilliant.
I don't mean to be disrespectful but any freeper who doesn't know the difference between censorship by government actors and private ownership exercising their perogatives would be better off somewhere else.
I can just see the nasty little God-loathing, uber-lib tree-hugging shrew yanking the plug on the P.A. and savoring the moment, -her little heart going pitty-pat knowing that she just prevented a grave injustice.
I can hear her recounting it to her friends, as if she just done something noble.
This might have been justified if the girl was droning on about Satan...
I like it when stuff like this happens, this could become a trend.
If you were blessed enough to be Valedictorian you should be more than willing to thank God.
The Bullhorn idea is very nice.. It could catch on ;>
This story needs to get kicked up, -and it will.
...of course you don't get a free microphone. But once your told the microphone is yours...they can not 'separate' you from your core beliefs. Ones religion informs one. She should not have been censored.
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