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EDITORIAL
Religious freedom
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Updated: Apr. 10, 2012 | 9:59 a.m.
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to review the case of 2006 Foothill High School valedictorian Brittany McComb, whose microphone was turned off by school officials at her graduation ceremonies when she spoke about the part her Christian beliefs had played in her success.
Ms. McComb had submitted her speech to administrators for review, in keeping with district policy. The school's censors decided to excise certain religious references. Ms. McComb attempted to deliver the original version of her speech. The moment she began to speak the censored words, school officials turned off her microphone. She sued.
In June 2007, a federal court in Nevada rejected the school district's second attempt to have her case dismissed, ruling Ms. McComb's lawsuit raised substantial free speech claims. But school officials appealed and the case was dismissed.
Should public school students be accorded all the freedoms outlined in the Bill of Rights? No. They are not free to speak words not approved by the school district to the "captive audience" of an official school function, any more than a student has a free speech right to drone on, disrupting a classroom and making it impossible for the teacher to work.
The problem is with the prohibitions against Congress found in the First Amendment, which states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
When the government censors take out their editors' pencils and start dictating that a certain number of references to God are OK, but no more -- and certainly no mention of Jesus -- they push perilously close to the Establishment Clause. Government should not be judging how much religiosity is OK, which religions are permissible and which aren't.
Those who attended the district's 2006 graduation ceremonies reported the flashing of gang signs by students onstage was common, and that no effort was made to restrict those free expressions. Should we thus conclude the district approves of -- even "proselytizes" -- gang membership?
We have come to the point where public policy is not freedom of religion, but freedom from religion. This is one good reason the best students -- if their families can afford it -- increasingly flee the public schools, where social pathologies are more and more the norm.
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patrick, I asked first. As I have said before, every war we have been involved in since 1898 was of questionable origin, since the fascist/globalist banksters have wanted us to play the world police for a century. And it is the banksters that have been controlling American textbooks for decades and not telling us the truth about the Balfour Declaration, the McCollum Memo, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the U.S.S. Liberty, and April Glaspie's pre-Gulf War contact with Saddam Hussein. Now, does that make you feel better?
So, how many of their own people did Stalin and Mao kill?
BTW, I never said Washington was a Christian...nor that he was always right.
Hey:
Patriotism being the last refuge of a scoundrel and all, its nice to see the flag being waived in all its glory so we know who you are.
Thanks.
Winston:
How many people has America killed in the last 8 years? How many Indians did Americans kill during our Manifest Destiny period? How many Japanese did Americans kill, how many Germans, how many Italians?
How many Vietnamese did this country kill? How many El Salvadorians, Hondurans, Mexicans, Columbians, Iranians, Russians, how many Afganis, how many Chileans, Argentinians, Congalese, Rwandans, Laotians, Cambodians, Chinese, Guatemalans, Panamanians, Columbians?
How often are these stories recited in American textbooks censored by rabid republican right wing extremists given to our K-12 graders?
By the way, George Washington was a lot of things, but he wasn't always right. And he certainly wasn't a Christian.
patrick, how many people were killed by their government in the USSR and Red China during the Communist regimes of Stalin and Mao?
As you know, I don't like a lot of what our nation has done in the 100 years since the banksters created the federal reserve and took over our government, but the horrors of Stalin and Mao far outweigh what our nation has done.
BTW
---
"Do not let anyone claim to be a true American, don't let them claim the tribute of American Patriotism if they ever attempt to remove religion from politics." - George Washington
"Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers." - John Jay
KGB:
Don't know what K-12 school you could have gone to which taught you that the CIA was feeding LSD to people in the 60's, or that it was putting chemical weapons into the subways in NYC during that time, or that the CIA hired the mob to assassinate Castro, or that we mined Nicaruaguan harbors, that Columbus spread disease which killed an entire civilization, but either you are lots younger than I am, or went to a very special school in a different country.
Its not the experience of most Americans I can assure you.
American schools don't teach that their government is imperfect; you don't really think you could get that kind of stuff out of a textbook that has been censored by the rabid right wing do you KGB?
And, obviously you haven't read the sermon that this young girl gave at the high school, but I doubt that it would change your mind about what you have said here anyway.
And, I hope, and pray, that the entire world becomes a place of tolerance and peace, and keeping religion out of schools and politics will be a FINE first step.