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.
‘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.”’
If they were so offended by this song, then why didn’t they just pick another one that didn’t “offend” them rather than rewrite one that already exists?
Is anyone really surprised by this? The left’s fundamental goal is to replace God with the state.
I guess they hate the Declaration of Independence, too? /rhetorical
Amazing. The birthplace of the USA is also the same place where it is being put to death.
I remember being at some conference as a young military wife in Germany. I’d been there about 2 3/4 years and I was tired of Europe — how dark it was, how controlled and regimented everything was, how closed up and dead everything was, not to mention their freaking scowly unfriendly faces.
They played this song and I burst into tears. I was homesick beyond belief. I wanted to be back in my wonderful, light-filled, wonderful country, with all its variety and beauty — free to roam, free to do whatever I wanted. Free to experience life and joy and happiness.
What we have in the US — our freedom, is something very unique and precious.
I SO wish these GD un-American progressives (who the hell are these people? They’re NOT Americans, because they HATE America and what it stands for!) would just head back on over to Europe, or whatever other socialist hell they’d prefer to be in and stay there.
They are bent on re-making this place into darkness. We would do well to fight them off from EVER being able to succeed.
Nah, he is to busy raising the limits on "Private Placements" so that Fidelity Brokerage Co can benefit. Go over to the Business Insider and find the story from a couple of days ago...
I swear I will send some money to Liz Warren after what a turn coat he has been ergo Dodd-Frank etc.
IMHO their is more going on here.
Lee Greenwood is Pro-American, often singing @ Air Shows etc and has even been in the presence of that EVIL President George Bush.
Yes IMHO it is still about Bush and all that were around him. Don't take it so personal, I have family back in Mass, and grew up their most Freepers have no idea what a wasteland it is for Conservatives, this is not a surprise.
Good for Lee!
Don’t forget I-90. Follow it far enough and you’ll get to Idaho.
They figured why bother keeping in the songs if it didn't really interfere with the plot really all that much and all it really did was waste valuable time of getting in another showing or two, bonus revenue, I suppose.
Lesson taught by this school: Believing in God is shameful and God must hidden like a bathroom activity.
Removing God from this school, and from the entire curriculum, is NOT religiously neutral!
Axiom: There is no such thing as a religiously neutral school. It is impossible.
Axiom: Government schools are NOT religiously neutral and never have been. All government owned and run K-12 schools always have been, and are now, First Amendment, establishment of religion, and expression of religion, ABOMINATIONS!
I bet they don’t edit rap and rock music at the prom or football games or stop cheerleaders from doing booty call dances.... (cheerleaders would be booted off for refusing)
The school did not back down, they cancelled the song altogether
WHy would a liberal like Scott Brown want to get involved?
I’m suprised they allow kids to say “I love the USA,” in our public schools.
They didn’t insert Obama’s name in place of God? mmm mmm mmm..
Just remove Greenwood.
The guy sucks.
‘I remember being at some conference as a young military wife in Germany. I’d been there about 2 3/4 years and I was tired of Europe — how dark it was, how controlled and regimented everything was, how closed up and dead everything was’
If I said that about the US, I would be arrogant Eurotrash or a pompous-ass Limey. How the hell can you denigrate an entire continent?. Sorry, but you come across as the worst type of ignorant American abroad. Not enough McD’s and Wendy’s for you?. Silly Euros, imgaine having the audacity to have their own (superior and sophisicated) culture.
Dead?. Not to me, hun. I could never get tired of Paris, Rome, Berlin, Barcelona, Lisbon, Budapest, Milan. Europe is a continent of history, culture, spectacular scenery.
’ not to mention their freaking scowly unfriendly faces.’
Yeah, you equally sound like you were a barrel of joy yourself. Funny, on my travels, I find most Germans and Europeans to be friendly.
‘What we have in the US — our freedom, is something very unique and precious.’
Horses*it.
Again, that is the very type of smallminded arrogance that stereotypes Americans. ‘Only’ America and Americans are truly free. And the rest of the world is a hellhole with unfriendly jealous people.
Yep. Uh-huh. Whatever.
Thank god many Americans are not as ignorant, arrogant and smallminded as you.
If I said that about the US, I would be arrogant Eurotrash or a pompous-ass Limey. How the hell can you denigrate an entire continent?. Sorry, but you come across as the worst type of ignorant American abroad. Not enough McD’s and Wendy’s for you?. Silly Euros, imgaine having the audacity to have their own (superior and sophisicated) culture.
***
You can have your culture if you prefer it. I’ll take mine. I could have cared less about fast food places in Europe. You had plenty of those over there, btw, and you don’t fool me — Europeans love McDonalds every bit as much we do. You just aren’t allowed to have as many of them ...probably something or someone controlling that whole issue as well.
**
Dead?. Not to me, hun. I could never get tired of Paris, Rome, Berlin, Barcelona, Lisbon, Budapest, Milan. Europe is a continent of history, culture, spectacular scenery.
**
It sure is — but at times it’s also very dark and the sun is NEVER out, at least 3/4 of the year. I had to go on anti depressants in that place from lack of sunshine.
’ not to mention their freaking scowly unfriendly faces.’
Yeah, you equally sound like you were a barrel of joy yourself. Funny, on my travels, I find most Germans and Europeans to be friendly.
‘What we have in the US — our freedom, is something very unique and precious.’
Horses*it.
Again, that is the very type of smallminded arrogance that stereotypes Americans. ‘Only’ America and Americans are truly free. And the rest of the world is a hellhole with unfriendly jealous people.
Yep. Uh-huh. Whatever.
Thank god many Americans are not as ignorant, arrogant and smallminded as you.
**
Oh, shut up. I’ll tell you one story out of many that APPALLED me. My german neighbor felt she was “too old” to go back to school and had to just be satisfied with a low-wage position at a bank — at the age of 26!! She knew her opportunity to do that was OVER — at 26. What the hell is that? You can have your socialist crap — I have FREEDOM here, to be anything I want, and I can do it after the age of 30, as well. You take a 12 year old and tell them they can’t go to university because, well, they just aren’t “college material.” I find that quite limiting and small minded if you ask me.
Germans DO NOT smile. I’m sorry, they do not. It takes getting to know them for about 5 years before they will smile. I lived there 6 years and i know them too well. They never seemed like happy people to me ... until they were drinking beer, however.
You can crow all you want. You do NOT have the same freedoms we enjoy here — you are told what to do in so many areas I don’t think you even realize it. If that’s how you want to live, then live that way ...doesn’t make me miss MY country any less.
Scotsman, you suck.
‘You can have your culture if you prefer it. I’ll take mine.’
Good for you. I will take mine: a mixture of Scottish, British, European and North American.
‘It sure is — but at times it’s also very dark and the sun is NEVER out, at least 3/4 of the year. I had to go on anti depressants in that place from lack of sunshine.’
Maybe in Germany. But Southern Europe from W France to Turkey, Italy to Cyprus is bathed in sunshine 3/4 of the year. Its no different to your own country!. Miami or Minnesota, San Diego or Seattle, Dallas or Denver.
‘Oh, shut up. I’ll tell you one story out of many that APPALLED me. My german neighbor felt she was “too old” to go back to school and had to just be satisfied with a low-wage position at a bank — at the age of 26!! She knew her opportunity to do that was OVER — at 26. What the hell is that? You can have your socialist crap — I have FREEDOM here, to be anything I want, and I can do it after the age of 30, as well. You take a 12 year old and tell them they can’t go to university because, well, they just aren’t “college material.” I find that quite limiting and small minded if you ask me.’
So you are ready to write off all of Europe because of the poor attitude of one German?. I am Scottish/British, and we have more people than anyone in Europe in ‘mature education’.
If you are trying to suggest that people in Britain, Ireland or mainland Europe dont try to better themselves, dont try to educate themselves beyond age 18, you are talking donkey twaddle, lassie. Utter twaddle.
‘You can crow all you want. You do NOT have the same freedoms we enjoy here’.
Utter crap.
For two reasons.
1—I am lived in America!.
2- You have never lived in Britain.
You cannot be so stupid or arrogant to think that living in Germany is the same as living in the UK. As if ‘Yoorup’ is all the same.
Try living in Britain. Then I think you will see that I am just as free as you.
Not as much as him.
Honestly, it is a dreadful song, the lyrics are banality personified. America has some great patriotic songs, truly great, and after Sept 11th, THIS is the one they all love?.
Really?.
Scotsman, I really don’t care what your opinion is of Lee Greenwood and his song. Seriously. What is your problem?
No one says it’s our most fav song of all ..it’s just a popular song and progressives are trying to usurp it with their godless PC dithering crap. It’s ridiculous.
Massachusetts is an atheistic socialist state...this should surprise nobody.
What would these liberal A-Holes do if the entire audience stood up and sand “God Bless the USA”? Would they actually understand that true loyal Americans love this song or would they go whining to the ACLU to start a lawsuit?
The only way to end the fighting over what happens in schools is to do away with the government school system. Privatizing education is the answer, both to put an end to this kind of crapola and to improve education.
How many guns can you own and carry in Britain?
How many guns can you own and carry in Britain?
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