Bad things are happening in the Clark County,
school district. Hard-nosed rebellious people are refusing to toe the
line. Superintendent
Carlos Garcia is a very worried man. He banned student-led prayer but 3 out of
the 5 board members voted to allow invocations and benedictions at
graduations. What these irresponsible board members won't see is that their
refusal to implement the ban jeopardized $70 million in federal
funding, including the free lunch subsidy program. What is it that makes people
so keen on prayer that they would take such a silly risk?
The story took a turn for the worst last week. School
officials had to cut short a high school valedictorian's commencement speech.
Brittany
McComb, graduating with a 4.7 GPA. included praise to God for her success at
Foothill High School in Henderson, Nevada. Do you see what's happening
here? Reckless faith in the older generation is now infecting the youngsters.
It's more serious than you might imagine. After the officials
turned off her microphone in mid speech and asked her to vacate the podium, the
ill-mannered crowd jeered and called for her to be allowed to
continue. Those brave school officials had to act against the will of most of
the people there.
This was deliberate mischief on the part of this young
lady. The school had gone to great trouble to censor her speech. They had
demanded
to see ahead of time what she intended to say. Quite right. After all, the next
thing you know young people will speak out on social, political
or economic issues thereby deeply wounding presidents, senators or captains of
industry. May I remind you that many school projects are
sponsored by local business leaders.
"There should be no controversy here," ACLU lawyer Allen
Lichtenstein said. "It's important for people to understand that a
student was given a school-sponsored forum by a school and therefore, in
essence, it was a school-sponsored speech." Be sure to remember that next
time you're at a graduation. Whatever is said is to be automatically deemed the
views and policy of the school.
Why are you struggling to follow all this? You should
understand that the silencing of McComb was an effort to uphold these time
honored
words: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the
freedom of speech, or of the press.." That first amendment came about because
early Americans demanded a guarantee of their basic freedoms.
Without it, says the 1st amendment center, religious minorities could be
persecuted, the government might establish a national religion,
protesters could be silenced, the press could not criticize government, and
citizens could not mobilize for social change.
No matter how brilliant, you cannot have a student
honoring God in a speech at school because already we have a president and many
in
Congress doing that during their talks. If you can't bring yourself to support
the A.C.L.U.'s crusade to foster liberty to say those things that
are within their catalogue of approved speech you'll just have to be one of
those outsiders who uses the privilege of freedom of speech to speak
against their agenda. There is however one way you can help them. Just say
nothing. Your silence will be almost as good as your vocal support.
Ah, you are seeing through my tongue-in-cheek praise of
the "defenders of civil liberty." I write in the hope of seeing the Jewish
proverb actualized: "He who listens to a life-giving rebuke will be at home
among the wise." I don't know what church Brittany attends, but I
have no fear that her bravery will cause congress to "establish" her church as
our national religion. Fear of expressed ideas is a sign of the
foolishness of believing that all ideas should be equally honored. Equally
heard yes; equally valid no! Let the people decide - they still know how.