Posted on 04/06/2012 1:23:09 AM PDT by markomalley
An elementary school in Massachusetts has told kids not to say the word “God” in the Lee Greenwood song “God Bless the USA” during a recent assembly. Instead, they wanted students to say, “We love the USA.” Many parents were not happy with this move, but some agreed that the principal did the right thing. The school decided that they would pull the song from the assembly all together instead of continuing a debate about it.
Michael Graham, a conservative radio talk show host with WTKK in Massachusetts, joined Martha MacCallum on America’s Newsroom to discuss the matter. Graham disputes the point that there was a debate at all. “No one came to the elementary school in Bellingham, which is 15 minutes from my house and said, ‘We’re offended by God Bless the USA’ … What happens is these bureaucrats inside government get so afraid that someone might be offended that they preemptively censor themselves. This is censorship, this is good old fashioned government limiting speech.”
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnewsinsider.com ...
Could the author who holds the copyright demand they not sing his song? He owns the melody. Don’t know if it’s Greenwood. I doubt very seriously the school is paying royalties. Maybe he could demand a very high price to sing it.
Bump
Now they’ll just sing, “the USA.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNqUORIFV4I
God Bless the USA - Lee Greenwood
The Dept of Ed. HAS TO GO, if we ever again have a decent school system.
vaudine
I think we should go back into all of Washington’s speeches and Adams and Roosevelt etc....and scratch out the word God and/or every inference of God. Does that make sense?? Of course not...
I’m surprised that the progressive liberati didn’t demand to replace the word “God” with “Allah” upon removal of the word.
This happen in Assachussets? What a surprise.
America is dead; our culture is being eradicated, and there is no response. Who would even defend what is left?
...part XII...
I believe that EVERY Public Employee who acts in violation of Personal Constitutional Freedom should be bankrupted BEFORE the Taxpayers are forced to fund a Civil or Criminal Case settlement....NO IMMUNITY in the Public Sector.
This is what has become of the cradle of America.
(article should be updated on FoxNews, that's where I heard it)
Fox Boston yesterday had the story. Coupla points:
The school backed down, the song will be in the program in the original form, singing is voluntary. (Right call.)My guess, when the assembly is held, everyone in the building, including the audience will emphatically sing the chorus, "God bless the U.S.A."Lee Greenwood did write the school and told them they could not sing the song in altered form, that "God" was the most important word in the song.
Scott Brown carried Bellingham handily and will carry it handily again in 2012. This is not Cambridge.
The First Amendment, with regard to religion, says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.
At that time, the word respecting meant having to do with. (see http://1828.mshaffer.com/d/search/word,respecting).
So, the restriction created by the Constitution is on Congress, not on the people. Any law passed by Congress that is interpreted as restricting the religious behavior of the people ought to be null and void.
Therefore, the federal laws funding local schools ought to be null and void if they restrict the religious actions of the people. Those are the laws that have been used to restrict religious expression in the local schools for many years.
I should point out that Bellingham is near Wrentham, where Scott Brown lives. Bellingham, Wrentham, Southeastern Massachusetts in General, is sort of the Orange County of New England. (My wife grew up in Attleboro.) People there tend to be a lot less political than eastern Massachusetts, around Boston, to the extent they are political, they tend to be patriotic and family oriented.
good oportunity for Scott Brown to weigh in NOW!
School administrators and their ilk are hardly an accurate reflection of the communities they serve. Just because I live in a mostly conservative community, most of my kid’s teachers and administrators are leftists of the first order.
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