Posted on 04/07/2010 8:24:28 AM PDT by rhema
Like Jefferson and Madison, I strongly believe in separation of church and state. And if a principal were to mandate school-directed prayer in classrooms, then that would be a violation of that separation. However, if at commencement, a valedictorian speaks of what God and Christ have meant to her life, that is her First Amendment right to free speech! The Roberts Supreme Court does not appear to agree.
Last November, the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal by Brittany McComb who — as a 2006 valedictorian at Foothill High School in Nevada — had her microphone cut off by school officials when she started to speak about how God and Christ had taught her to experience something greater than herself, inspiring her to rise above her early high school failures.
Brittany had been forewarned. Her high school required a prior draft copy of commencement speeches, and censored all references in hers to her religious faith. She went ahead anyway because, as a student of the First Amendment, she knew she was speaking as an individual — and not on behalf of the state as represented by officials of her public high school.
With the help of the Rutherford Institute, headed by John Whitehead — a premier protector of all rights in the Bill of Rights — Brittany appealed the literal cutting off of her First Amendment rights ("Brittany McComb v. Gretchen Crehan").
The "liberal" 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals supported the school's censorship because she was "proselytizing." But Brittany was speaking for, and about, herself. She was not trying to convert anyone.
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
The only official act that the school would be tasked with handling would be the mailing of the diplomas.
The superintendent of schools refused to permit the performance because “Ave Maria” is religious in nature and its presence might have offended members of the audience.
How long before someone is offended by the sight of a Cross on a Church?
So what if she was proselytizing?
BS. The Valedictorian speech should include something about what makes someone a valedictorian! Let’s just assume for the sake of argument that Christians believe that everything they have and everything they are is a gift from God... what right does the school or anyone else have to tell them to find someone else (government?!) to thank? Not only are we censoring the religious liberty of one, we are removing the possibility of inspiration from the rest!
GK Chesterton noted that the end result of political correctness, where politics and religion weren’t acceptable topics of discussion in a polite society, is that we are pretty much left with discussing the weather. So every graduation will have the same speech from now on so that no one’s knickers can get in a twist... and no one will learn a damn thing from those who have achieved success.
good for Hentoff
Mr. Hentoff, like alot of people, does not understand the Constitution. The Constitution only prohibits the establishemnt of a state religion. Commencement addresses are the exercise of religion but not an establishment.
There are some Jews who hold their liberalism higher than their Judaism.
Allowing the valedictorian to say what inspired him or (more likely) her to greatness is not the government “respecting the establishment of religion”, but disallowing any mention of religion or God is most certainly an abridgment of her right to ‘freely exercise’ her religious beliefs.
Way back when I graduated from a public, secular high school in a Red State, we had a baccalaureate service, followed by a graduation ceremony. The baccalaureate was religious, and usually featured an address by a local Protestant pastor. The graduation was totally secular.
Despite the generally Protestant character of the baccalaureate (reflecting the majority religious makeup of the community at the time), I know of no objections to it by Roman Catholic, Orthodox Christian, or Jewish students or parents. We had students of all of these faiths. (We had no muslims at the time.)
This old way of doing things I am sure is now illegal for public secular high schools. But provided attendance at the baccalaureate were voluntary, it would provide a good solution to this issue.
Let her speak, freely.
Some Moonbats in my neighborhood wanted the church bells at my parish silenced on Sundays because “children were terrified”. The church has been there for 150 years.
Who is whiney? The group that is trying to suppress her free speech and practice of her religion are the whiners.
Most of those that are protesting would have no protest if it were a speech by a non-mainstream religion. This is an attack on Christianity and the practice of religion as set forth in the Constitution.
Who would pay for the multiple graduations?
These kids interacted throughout their attendence, why segregrate them now? Life isn’t like that. School is preparation for adult life.
I’m not Christian, yet I find no problem with her invoking Jesus’ name.
I went to a HS graduation when I lived in Utah. The LDS students gave the Invocation and the Christian students (their terms) gave the Benediction.
At our HS one graduation, after the Jewish valedictorian was told he could not pray, he sneezed and the entire student body responded loudly “God Bless you!”.
I think what the school did was completely wrong. She has a right to say what is important to her, including her faith, that isn’t proselytizing in the least.
It is freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion, and this whole separation of church and state junk has been misinterpreted and misused by the GD’d Atheists.
How long before someone is offended by the sight of a Cross on a Church?
- - - - - -
Already happened. There was a lawsuit about it.
Did you read the article?
NO, CLOSE THE GOVERNMENT RE-EDUCATION CAMPS. THAT AVOIDS ALL OF THESE PROBLEMS. BUT, THEN, CONSERVATIVES WOULD HAVE TO GIVE UP THEIR FAVORITE WELFARE ENTITLEMENT -”FREE” GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS.
Hentoff doesn’t have any understanding at all of what the religion clauses are or were intended to do.
Did you read the article?
The only dissenter from the "conservative" Roberts Supreme Court's refusal to even hear "Nurre v. Whitehead" was Justice Samuel Alito, who channeled Jefferson and Madison, saying:My initial reaction to the case was that it mirrors the situation on FreeRepublic: our postings here are our own, the publication of them on FR web site is an expression of the opinions/beliefs, and the First Amendment rights, of Jim Robinson. Ultimately anything that JR doesn't want on the site, doesn't stay on the site; the site itself exists if, and to the extent that, Jim choses that it be so."When a public school purports to allow students to express themselves, it must respect the students' free speech rights. School administrators may not behave like puppet masters who create the illusion that students are engaging in personal expression when in fact the school administration is pulling the strings."If the school were a private institution as FR is a private institution, the school could properly kill the mike, which it owns, at its own discretion. But as Justice Alito suggests, a "public" school is a government institution, and if the government provides a venue for the expression of the beliefs of an individual the government may not censor the individual.
Does anyone suppose that Harriet Miers would have written that lone dissent?
Stories like this only serve to further reinforce my belief that public schools shouldn’t even exist in the first place. These clashes between different religious persuasions are inevitable, and it’s silly for anyone to be put in a position where a whole bunch of lawyers has to figure out what constitutes an “acceptable” valedictorian speech.
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