Posted on 06/22/2006 3:46:06 PM PDT by NYer
LAS VEGAS, June 22, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The name of Christ is so offensive to modern secular ears that Clark County School District officials, who knew it was coming, cut off the microphone during a valedictorian address before they or anyone else could hear it.
Brittany McComb is a Christian and a top student graduating from Foothill High. She knew that her valedictorian address would probably be cut short, but was determined to go ahead and mention the one name that is for her above every other name.
"I went through four years of school at Foothill and they taught me logic and they taught me freedom of speech," McComb stated. "God's the biggest part of my life. Just like other valedictorians thank their parents, I wanted to thank my lord and saviour."
The 400 plus graduates and guests gathered at a Las Vegas casino for the ceremony booed and jeered after McComb’s speech was cut short.
McComb was required to vet her speech before the graduation ceremony with Foothill administrators. This, says the school, is standard practice before speeches are read. The school officials then removed all Biblical references and the single mention of the name of Jesus Christ.
McComb, who graduated with a 4.7 grade point average, was warned that if she deviated from the approved text, she could be cut off; but she saw it as a matter of freedom of speech.
“People aren't stupid and they know we have freedom of speech and the district wasn't advocating my ideas,” McComb said. “Those are my opinions.”
“It's what I believe.”
The school district’s legal counsel, Bill Hoffman, said that McComb's words counted as preaching. He told media, “We review the speeches and tell them they may not proselytize.”
McComb said she was not surprised by the censorship. “Even in the Bible it says that the name of Jesus will be hated.”
“But the thing is, it is freedom of speech, so I was upset,” McComb said on the “Jay Sekulow Live!” radio program on June 20. “I was really leery about having to defy authority.... It took me a while, but I answer to a higher authority and it's my freedom of speech, and I had to come to terms with that.”
The American Civil Liberties Union, becoming notorious for its secularist zealotry in cases of public expression of religious belief, praised the school’s decision saying, “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.”
Not so, says a Constitutional lawyer and freedom of speech activist. Mat Staver, founder and chairman of the Florida-based pro-family legal organization Liberty Counsel, said McComb should take the school district to court.
“I think this is one of the most outrageous examples of censorship at graduation that I've seen,” Staver said to Agape Press. “For school officials to literally be standing by the switch at the mixing board and cut the microphone on a student, simply because that student mentions God or Jesus, is just unbelievable.”
A writer in the Conservative Voice, Ben Shapiro, responded, “Let's assume the school district, by allowing McComb's speech, would have been promoting her message. Here's the question: So what?”
“There is no right to be free from public expression of religion,” Ben Shapiro wrote, “but there is a Constitutionally protected right to free exercise of religion … it is none of the school district's business whether she chooses to invoke God, Jesus or Zeus (though history indicates that the ACLU would fight for her right to invoke Zeus).”
The Constitution of the US, says Shapiro, prohibits the establishment of a state religion such as the Anglican Church in Britain, but was never intended to suppress the right to freedom of religious expression.
See MSNBC's interview with Brittany McComb:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13461308/
I have to disagree.
The fact that it was obvious to the audience why the mic was cut, and she continued her speech without most of the audience being able to hear her was quite a memorable event for those present.
It was a probably a more effective witness than it would have been if she had been allowed to make the speech without censorship, and certainly more so than handing off to the second string.
Christians have too often allowed ourselves to be silenced because we're told, often by those who know absolutely nothing about the Christian life, that it's the honorable/polite/Christian thing to do.
Jesus didn't hide when He needed to point out wrong doing, using terms like "vipers" and comparing people to a sarcophagus that is white on the outside but full of rotting, foul flesh on the inside.
It's a tactic that has worked all too well in keeping Christians "in their place" for far too long, IMO.
So which is it? Did she "lie" or did she "change her mind"? You have asserted both as possible explanations, and some how have developed a theory that the two are mutually inclusive.
Here's something to consider. Is it possible to "change your mind" without telling a "lie"?
I always find it amazing that Christianity-despising atheists always have this sudden conversion to Christian principles when they think it suits their argument. "But she LIED! Christians don't do that! Waaaaaahhhh!"
But she didn't lie. She tweaked the nose of the ACLU. I wish she had punched it and broken it.
Indeed, we can all raise a glass to this young lady!
May she one day be sitting on the US Supreme Court.
Not necessarily. Maybe she stays awake the whole time.
Thank you both for bring support to my position.
Again, Thank You
Bring = Bringing
I haven't seen any accounts (except for rumors like yours) that agreed to give the edited version. What I read, is that they told her to give the edited version, not that she agreed to it. And they told her if she strayed from their version of her speech, they would cut off her mic. Do you have a link to anything that verifies your account that she agreed to give the edited version?
So what is your position? Did she "lie" or did she "change her mind". You have refused to clarify.
Did she agree to give the edited version, or is that just a rumor? As far as I know, she was told to give the edited version, and was told that if she deviated from it, her mic would be cut. I haven't seen any indication that she ever said she was going to give the edited version. Have you?
In fact, it's a lie to assert someone told a lie if the accuser knows there is no evidence to support the accusation.
It's also slander.
I guess when you can't argue your case based on the facts, you have to make things up. She apparently didn't actually say what PeteB570 accuses her of saying, or he would be able to back it up.
Not necessarily. Maybe she stays awake the whole time.
I think so. But then, the older I get, the bigger "lier" I become.
"May she one day be sitting on the US Supreme Court."
She might make those "old men" pay more attention to things.
If I had a wireless keyboard and mouse, I could be an even bigger "lier."
"She lied. End of story. OK, one more time. She claims to be a good Christian but lied to the school officials. She lied."
Yup, you're right. It looks like she did lie.
You know, during WWII, some Christians sheltered Jewish children from the nazi's by claiming that they were Christian. The children were saved from the holocaust as a result. The Christians involved in this conpiracy LIED. And they also acted in violation of what were the "lawful" edicts of the nazi regime.
Sometimes we answer to a higher law. I suggest you read Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's treatise: "Letter from Birmingham Jail" if you want an eloquent discussion of just versus unjust laws.
Another post on one of the MANY threads about this topic said that in an interview on the Today Show the girl indicated that she did agree to give the edited speech but then "changed her mind" (Read: decided to lie) and give the original speech.
I was about to take your word for it, until you indicated that you don't the difference between changing your mind and lying. I'll hold out for a more believable response. A link would be nice.
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