Posted on 12/24/2006 11:46:09 AM PST by wintertime
A high school student whose commencement speech was cut off when she spoke about her Christian faith will have her case heard in a federal court.
A federal judge in Nevada ruled Monday that a debate over freedom of religious expression in public school commencement ceremonies will go to court.
The charges stem from a June 15 incident at Foothill High School in Henderson, Nevada, when school administrators cut off valedictorian Brittany McComb's commencement speech after she strayed from a pre-approved script. Earlier, they had removed from her speech references to the Bible and her faith.
McComb described God's love as "something we all desire. It's unprejudiced, it's merciful, it's free, it's real, it's huge, and it's everlasting." Then the microphone was switched off.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
There are deeper constitutional problems that unlie government schools:
1) Government schools never were, are not now, and never can be religiously neutral. It is axiomatic.
2) There are hundreds of curriculum and policies that must be decided and, in making these decisions, government WILL ESTABLISH and uphold the religious beliefs of some, and destroy those of others.
2) This graduation was a government sponsored event. Many of those attending are not Christian. The government schools can NOT at the same time allow the free speech of Christians and protect the other students from prosetylazation.
3) Government schools and First Amendment Rights are utterly incompatible. Order and safety can no co-exist with First Amendment Rights.
The answer is to get rid of government schools, i.e., the failed Department of Education. You have no individual, inherent right to education, and if you decide to have children, you need to be able to budget for their education.
Then, you choose the school you'd like to send your kid to. There's no need for a national debate on whether kids should be taught evolution, intelligent design, tommy has 2 daddies, or the mention of God in the school ceremonies.
If you don't like what your child is being taught, simply send them to a different school. If enough folks feel the way you do, the school will go out of business from a lack of students. The market will work itself out, and the schools that are teaching what we want our children to learn will stay in business.
The best part is the government isn't involved at all, and we get to keep more of our hard earned money in our wallets, rather than the government taking that money to teach our kids values we don't want them to have.
This is what Tired of Taxes would call Another Reason To Homeschool.
1) Government schools never were, are not now, and never can be religiously neutral. It is axiomatic.
That's one heck of an axiom you're assuming there.
2) There are hundreds of curriculum and policies that must be decided and, in making these decisions, government WILL ESTABLISH and uphold the religious beliefs of some, and destroy those of others.
Are you also taking this as axiomatic, or do you have an argument to back this up?
2) This graduation was a government sponsored event. Many of those attending are not Christian. The government schools can NOT at the same time allow the free speech of Christians and protect the other students from prosetylazation.
You're taking a very broad view of "free speech" here. I'm assuming that you believe that the government has the power to hold some public events, if not school graduations... maybe bridge openings or groundbreakings on public buildings, perhaps. Must the government allow speakers at these events to, say, launch into obscene, scatological diatribes that have no relevance to the event at hand?
That being said, I fully agree with you that government schools are a bad idea, even if I disagree with your rationale.
"then the microphone was switched off."
then someone screamed, "Long Live Big Brother!!!!"
the new ruling class; some totalitarian swine who hind behind atheism, the constitution and reason. (make that subversive, totalitarian swine)
She absolutely should go to court over this because the law just stated that a school can NOT stifle individual expressions of faith under the deceitful "it will appear to be an endorsement by the school" nonsense allegations! http://sacredscoop.com
How about we get rid of the paranoid schizophrenic political correctness and lets get back to some common sense?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This is not a solution, because "common sense" can not be agreed upon by the entire culture. "Common Sense" is derived from religious, cultural, and political belief.
Sorry -you have no argument here- the courts have just declared a school can NOT censure INDIVIDUAL expressions of faith- period- no longer can schools censure under the false pretenses that they have to 'remain neutral' - this is an INDIVIDUALS right to free speech!
I DO AGREE, with you...and THAT is why government has no place in education.
Not comparable to this situation. This is a valedictory speech. This is recognized as the student's views, not the school's position.
Furthermore, valedictory speakers invariably speak glowingly the person or persons who most contributed to their success. She was free to laud her grandma, her favorite English teacher, her dear old dad, or anybody else she was grateful to. She chose to praise God's love. Thus suppressing her speech is content censorship of the worst sort, because it deprived her of the right to do what valedictorians DO: share a personal insight on what made her school years worthwhile, and shine the spotlight on those who are in her estimation most worthy of thanks and praise.
Unfortunately, the deities in our federal courts will not tolerate a Christian God being put before them. They'll throw this out. We've been given only one option in America. Worship the deities in the federal courts or shut up.
For the record, I'm an independent Protestant. If I was there and the valedictorian was a follower of some eastern religion, who wanted to give credit to Allah/Buddha/Vishnu/whatever for his/her achievement, I would have allowed the speech to go on without making a scene of it, though I may disagree with what's being said. Therefore can we say today's atheists are more intolerant than today's Christians?
Never let the government into your life. We should have listened to our elders.
Your a dreamer as I am, as long as PAC's, unions, and political payoff's are a viable part of our political process, that will never come to be.
I like the way The Lord works. If someone had just let the speech go on without interfering, few people might have carried The Gospel out the door. Now that it is a news item, more people are being made aware of The Gospel.
I listened to my Father, who after driving 40 miles to meet with a SS representative to explain that my Mother shouldn't be "gifted" with SS benefit's that were offered to her because she never worked a day in her life (worked her butt off raising 5 kid's however) when my Father retired, and was told to "stifle it" and let her take what we have to offer, he left fuming and accepted the fact that no matter how much he tried, government will redistribute at will.
He retired as a government worker.
He died in '04 making more on retirement than I am making today and I am considered "one of the rich" by liberal political standards.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.