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| Michaell Connelly |
The court therefore found that keeping this one young man
from being offended was more important than the constitutional rights of
freedom of expression and religion of the rest of the students. The fact is
that the judge's order was incredibly broad in scope. It prohibited the use of
the terms “invocation” or “benediction” and said the students were strictly
prohibited from using the name Jesus Christ or saying the words “prayer” or
“amen.” The ruling appeared to extend even to the valedictorian and would have
her from including a short prayer of thanks for her graduation in her speech
This courageous young lady filed an emergency appeal with
the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to allow her to give her speech as
she has written it. Her attorneys argued that to prohibit her from expressing
her feelings during her speech violated both her First Amendment rights to free
speech and freedom of religion. The court agreed with her and allowed her to
make her speech and for the invocation and benediction to take place.Yet,
despite this ultimate victory this is still another egregious example of what
is happening in our country. I've talked on and my radio show about the fact
that across the country college students are being harassed, expelled, or
denied their degrees for daring to disagree with the politically correct ideas
that violate their religious beliefs and are being forced on them by the
schools.
This assault on religious freedom is being justified by
referring to the concept of “separation of church and state." In fact,
most people, including students who take my constitutional law course, are
surprised to learn that no such phrase exists anywhere in our Constitution. The
wording of the First Amendment is clear enough. It states:
"Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof."
The idea of separation of church and state was never
expressed by the founders in the Constitution or by the Congress. It was
contained in a letter written by President Thomas Jefferson in response to a
request by a church denomination that he mediate a dispute within the church
itself. He declined, saying that he did not think this was the proper thing for
the government to engage in. Many years later the federal courts started using
this phrase to justify removing religious references from schools and other
public places.
I have never found in my studies of the Constitution that
this was in any way the intent of the men who wrote it. They were strictly
concerned with seeing that the federal government did not establish a
particular religion for the whole country, and further did not interfere with
the right of the people to establish their own churches and denominations and
worship freely. The concept of God, or a higher power if you will, was readily
accepted by the founders and enshrined in documents like the Declaration of
Independence and even on public buildings. To this day a copy of the 10
Commandments is still displayed in the United States Supreme Court.
In other words, the First Amendment of the Constitution was
designed to protect freedom of religion, not "freedom from religion."
In my view, being an agnostic or atheist is a form of religious belief because
one is choosing not to believe in a deity. I defend the right to do so under
the Constitution, but that does not give an atheist or agnostic the right to
force their beliefs on Christians or any other religion that does believe in a
deity. Yet, that is exactly what the district judge was allowing to happen in
his ruling.
Instead of this agnostic student being allowed to exercise
his constitutional right not to participate in a prayer during the graduation,
the court had chosen to prohibit everyone else from exercising their
constitutional rights to participate in a prayer. So in effect, this court and
the other left-wing institutions and individuals that support this type of
ruling are in fact establishing that atheism is the official state religion of
United States of America, and the only one that is constitutionally protected.
When high school students are basically being told that if
they dare to be politically incorrect and exercise their First Amendment freedoms
they may face criminal charges then something is desperately wrong in this
country. It is time for the rest of us to take a stand and do what is necessary
to fight this form of injustice, not just in the courts, but in Congress, our
state legislatures, and local governments. Otherwise, we will soon see all of
our First Amendment rights disappear.
