June 16, 2006
The transformation of our country into a muzzled society of approved speech took a giant leap forward recently in Nevada . Meet Brittany McComb. As valedictorian of Foothill High School , Brittany graduated with a stunning 4.7 GPA. While other grads chose to stand before the graduation audience and thank their parents or thank a special mentor or friend, Brittany chose to thank God, and specifically Jesus, for her success and her life. That's when the speech-nazis stepped in.
As valedictorian, Brittany was required to submit her speech to school authorities for editing. That's not unusual in and of itself. Schools have a responsibility to make sure kids are not going to go nuts and ruin the ceremony, although most with those plans wouldn't submit them for scrutiny beforehand. In the version of Brittany 's speech approved by school officials, six words were stricken from the text along with two biblical references. They also banned from her speech a reference to God's love being so great that He gave His only Son to die for our sins.
When it came time to give the speech, Brittany reached deep down inside and pulled out a rare rebellious streak. “I went through four years of school at Foothill and they taught me logic and they taught me freedom of speech,” McComb told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “God's the biggest part of my life. Just like other valedictorians thank their parents, I wanted to thank my lord and savior.”
She never got the chance. Before she got to the word “Christ,” the politically correct speech-nazis pulled the plug. Her microphone went dead. The angry crowd jeered and booed for several minutes, showing their dissatisfaction in Brittany 's censorship. Still, school officials were proud of their decision to stifle her.
Allen Lichtenstein, general counsel for the ACLU of Nevada, clicked his cloved hooves together in delight. After reviewing Brittany 's unedited text, he said the school had done the right thing in cutting her off because her speech promoted religion. And as the left-wing press has drilled into our skulls, that's a “violation of the constitutional separation of church and state.”
I'm going to say this in all caps for the thinking-impaired: THERE IS NO CONSTITUTIONAL SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE!
There never has been. Our founding fathers would rise up out of their graves and slap Lichtenstein and the school authorities if they could. They never intended for the First Amendment to be used to stifle speech. The First Amendment was designed to prevent the restriction of free speech yet the ACLU repeatedly bastardizes the Constitution as a means to an end. Their goal is to control the speech.
Once any group is allowed a stranglehold on the language, freedom, as we know it, is over.
In the case of Brittany McComb, the ACLU's Lichtenstein squealed with delight over their victory. “There should be no controversy here,” he told the Review-Journal. “A student was given a school-sponsored forum by a school and therefore, in essence, it was a school-sponsored speech.” Oh, really? But when a teacher goes nuts and bashes the war in Iraq or tells kids it's okay to be gay then the
ACLU rushes in and defends their right to free speech as an individual. Isn't the classroom much more of a “school-sponsored forum” than a graduation stage?
The school maintained that Brittany was “proselytizing” in her speech. The dictionary defines proselytizing thusly: “To convert from one belief, doctrine, cause, or faith to another.” The secular humanists in our schools are fine, according to the ACLU. It's the Christians we have to fear. Now I understand.