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by Hans Zeiger | July 2nd, 2006
The most active force in suppressing speech at high school graduaction ceremonies is the ACLU.
At the June 15 commencement ceremony for Foothill High School in Nevada, school officials turned off the valedictorian’s microphone in the middle of her speech. Why? Brittany McComb dared to speak about her faith in Jesus Christ.
Brittany was ambitious as she grew up. She was a star on the swim team. She said in her speech that she was determined to be first place in every competition throughout junior high and high school. But she added that even first place was not enough; success was too small a shape to fit the emptiness she felt in her heart. She needed “Something more than me and what I do with my life, something more than my friends and what they do with their own lives.”
So Brittany quit the swim team, and she realized that God was the thing missing in her life. “This hole gapes as a wide-open trench when filled with swimming, with friends, with family, with dating, with shopping, with partying, with drinking, with anything but God. But His love fits. His love is ‘that something more’ we all desire. It’s unprejudiced, it’s merciful, it’s free, it’s real, it’s huge and it’s everlasting.”
Here the audience applauded. And here moved the ACLU.
Word moved along behind the scenes, where salaries and administrative ladders and professional reputations hung in the balance. Unlike the Class of 2006, the career administrator, who tired quickly of the classroom and contented himself in the province of paperwork and social engineering in exchange of a raise, had still to contend with the ACLU.
“God’s love is so great that he gave His only son up…”
And the administrator, owing his allegiance to a higher power, pulled the plug.
That higher power, we know, is not God. The ACLU reigns today as the gilded god of the judiciary, and of the Boy Scouts meeting room, and of the classroom, and of the graduation ceremony. But it is not God.
It is reminiscent of old Babylon, where King Darius forbade prayer to anything but his own majesty. Daniel, caught praying to the Living God with his windows open, faced the lions and lived to chat with Darius about it.
Brittany, caught speaking about her faith in the God of Daniel at commencement service, faced the ACLU. Whatever the administrators and their backers in the ACLU (which did asseverate on the case after the microphone deadened) may still say about the impropriety of her speech, Brittany was clearly within the bounds of the First Amendment freedom of expression, and within the bounds of Christian character.
The frequent remark of secularists is that Christians are more likely to wear faith upon their sleeves than upon their hearts. If they are secularists of the religious sort, mainly of the mainline churches, they will quote the Sermon on the Mount: “Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them.” Also, “when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men.”
These are not altogether baseless quotations; they are, after all, from the Bible. And even if they are grossly misapplied by secular fundamentalists, they should temper our ambitions. At the least we should give a charitable hearing to the secular allegation, because it is not altogether baseless.There is a spiritual pride that card-carrying zealots of the Religious Right are particularly disposed toward. I think sometimes that the Religious Right deserves to be reminded of the Pharisees.
But Brittany McComb is no Pharisee. Hers were not the fighting words of a boaster or a condemner or a wager. It was the simple testimony of grace.
The Pharisees were not corrupt because they did their works in public. Jesus, after all, had a very public ministry. The Pharisaical fault is pride.
And the Christian virtue is humility.
It is of a Christian mind — a humble mind — that a young woman should attribute her success to her Savior. It is the sort of thing one would not expect of a generation tending to self-preoccupation.
And it is the indication of a power at work in our day against all of the best plotted efforts of the secularists and their legal enforcers in the ACLU. Brittany herself is the proof of the words they wouldn’t let her say, that man can “take part in something greater than himself. That something is God’s plan.” Call it youthful idealism. Call it a conspiracy. It is much more.
What a courageous young lady. What a clearly effective speech in the audience’s applause to her honest and heartfelt remarks. What stark contrast of a confused mind in the coward of the school official… Enough said about how adults do not give kids enough credit for their intuition and intelligence – what a perfect example of a saying lots of people know by heart. This young lady’s commencement speech cannot be more timely and to the point. The prayer is for she, like all affected, to grow stronger in faith to navigate through this world.
Comment by L.L.M. | July 2, 2006
Brittany's courage, like that of Rachel Joy Scott at Columbine, is an inspiration that convicts the depths of my soul. May God forgive me for all the times I failed to speak, failed to give Him the Glory. May God raise up a generation of Rachael's and Brittany's, and their friends (hopefully including some of the male gender?), to bring revival to this troubled country. It is none too soon.
Comment by J.C.H. | July 3, 2006
Why didn't she thank Santa Claus for her Christmas presents? She dissed the tooth fairy and the easter bunny too!
Comment by illini69 | July 4, 2006
Though I am a proponent of the absolute separation of church and state, I do believe that the ACLU acted in a way which was in violation of the First Ammendment of the Constitution. I think that students in the public school system should be allowed to advocate their personal positions on any matter, including that of religion, so long as their views do not interfere with the quality of their educational institition, cause harm to others, or coerce them into following suit. That seems like a reasonable approach to me.
In this case, I believe that public school officials should examine the Constitution more closely; I think that they have a responsibility to allow for individual expressions of students' ideas, including those of religion, and that it is perfectly acceptable to allow for that private element without violating the separation between church or state or even relaying official judgements on those views.
I think this is especially important when it somes to allowing private school groups (ex. a lunch prayer group at my old high school), some important public ceremonies like graduation speeches and/or private ceremonies and personal expressions of belief (ex. Columbine memorial, etc).
I think it's important for officials to realize that they can make allowances for private expression without demonstrating either approval or disapproval on the part of the government funded system. I think it's misguided to take an entirely "hands off" approach and ignore the reality of religion altogether, because it can send the wrong message about students' personal views and can often lead to more grave misunderstandings.
I do have to admit I'm a bit ticked off. There was absolutely no threat in allowing this girl to make a speech which was obviously very important to her and expounded some of the basic, moral, personal tenants of her faith. Furthermore, she was not preaching or forcing her views onto anyone, but expressing her personal experiences in relation to her faith. Her freedom to express her views, regardless of her religion or philosophy, should not have been curtailed, unless of course they could have led to harm/coercion/other really bad stuff/, which they obviously would not. This is one case of the ACLU forgetting one of this country's most integral principles- religious and individual freedom.
Do you want to know the facts about religion in the classroom? Sometimes you can taste the hypocrisy. I'm a realist artist who attended a public high school class a few years back (post 9.11.01) where they brought in a visiting Muslim scholar, who spent the ENTIRE DARNED HOUR-LONG CLASS talking about his personal beliefs as a Muslim. Did I mention that he chuckled as he explained why Allah would eternally damn artists who drew realistically and prevent them from entering paradise (something about an impossible afterlife test of having to draw a dog and make it come to life; can't remember exactly because it was such CRAP). That's the reality of religion in the classroom, folks.
I just wish I'd had stopped being liberal a lot sooner and had the nerve to ask that guy about purdah, the veil, female genital mutilation, the overall rejection of basic freedoms in the islamic world, and to challenge the pervasive air of approval and approbation which everyone else seemed to bask in under the guise of tolerance (and which I did out of fear to be different). Of course, nothing happened to this visiting religious scholar. No ACLU outcry. No angry parents, to my knowledge. Did I mention he was visiting our history class, not a religion/philosophy course, and his only topic of discussion was his religion and the guidelines of Islam?
They also passed a copy of the Koran around the class, originally printed in Saudi Arabia with two sidebars of Arabic and English translation (with lots of "helpful" explanatory text, often blatantly sexist). I know a lot about that edition because I later bought an exact copy of it on ebay, because I wanted to know more about this "peaceful" world religion. Drat, where's that ACLU when you actually need them?!
I'm am American who will fight for religious freedom, but also for the separation between church and state, but certainly not in the silly way the ACLU did here. This girl did nothing wrong; it can't even be compared to real violations, such as the crap I sat through on that day!
Comment by Melissa Hardison | July 5, 2006