JESUS LOVES YOU!

A girl, a high-school senior, gave her graduation speech using references to God.

The article had mentioned that the policy of the school district was to edit every speech the students were to use in their graduation ceremony prior to graduation. In the case of this girl, her speech had been plastered with red marks, scratching or deletions of certain passages she had chosen to use. Those passages? References to God.

Not all remarks of God were deleted, as I remember, however most of them were.

Fortunately, the savvy student had kept the original speech on her home computer. At her graduation the girl gave her speech. In that speech she used the references to God that she had originally written and which had been edited out of her speech by school officials.

The speech, the article said, as I recall, was not a preaching form of reference to God. It was of content citations of what God meant to this female student. How God affected her life. She explained (or tried to) what God meant personally to herself. She voiced what was her own experiences in her individual relationship with God. And of course, she praised God for helping her through the difficulties of her struggles as a teenager.

This faithful Christian, one so young and bright, was simply trying to convey the most important panorama of her life. Her experiences with God and what God meant to her. She was also trying to convey what she believed were her basic individual rights to freedom of speech and freedom of expression.

She never had the opportunity to finish her speech.

Standing up there, defending her right to freedom of speech and freedom of expression, in front of a crowd of her classmates, school faculty members, parents, family and friends of the student body, her words fell silent. School officials had pulled the plug to her microphone, ending her right and desire to finish her speech.

How embarrassing this must have been for this Las Vegas high-school student who was receiving perhaps the most accomplished reward of a teenager’s life, a high-school graduation diploma. Too, it must have been a shameful event for all the World War II, Korean, Vietnam, Iraq and other veterans of wars in the audience whom as soldiers offered their lives in the name of freedom. Soldiers who have lost their fellow troops in the face of the enemy during combat in the name of liberty.

Abruptly, in the mist of her graduation speech, the stones were thrown at this girl by the school officials in the act of pulling her microphone plug, effectively ending her speech.

Obviously, this case ended up in the courts. I believe the parents had filed charges of right to freedom of speech and/or freedom of expression. The school district maintained "separation of church and state laws". I believe the girl lost in the first round of court proceedings and her case had moved up a notch to the next higher court level through appeal. I do not know the results or if the case even continues in the courts. I do know the girl didn't  have much of a chance of winning her case, not in today’s courts at least. And, even if she did win her case, could she go back before the very same audience and finish her speech, which she was denied? Of course not, there for, it must be judged that incredible damage was in fact inflicted upon this female high school student who was reflecting her views of God. A young girl exercising her right to freedom of speech and freedom of expression. Of course, "judgments" in the eyes of our courts of law and judgments in our own minds are entirely two different things.

I hope and pray that this girl one day publishes the entire contents of her speech and even provide a copy of the edited version of her speech. Presenting it to the world, in a forum such as this site. If she hasn't  already done so, and providing the court procedures have ended, so as not to effect her case. It would be an interesting comparison. At least in a meeting place such as this one, where her basic freedoms would not be denied and she would be free to express herself.

I will write in future articles about separation of church and state issues. Today, I focus on this young American citizen caught up in the struggles of freedom. Struggles which were already fought and won on the battlefields, yet died here in the land of the free.

What are your views on this?

Do you think the students microphone should have been disconnected because she made reference to God?

Or, do you feel she had a right to freedom of speech and freedom of expression even if she was in the presence of a school activity, and she did use her original speech rather than the censored version?

How do you feel about this situation or similar ones?

I would like to see your comments and I appreciate your input regardless of how you stand on the subject. After all, that is what freedom is all about.

Thanks for joining me. God Bless You.

RIVER

Las Vegas, Nevada