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As seems to be the case too many times these days, the free speech
rights of another student have been violated again. School officials
cut short a valedictorian speech by Las Vegas teen Brittany McComb
when it was apparent that she intended to deviate from the edited
version of her speech approved by school officials. So what exactly
was removed from the speech? Numerous references to Miss
McComb's Christian beliefs, of course. School officials believed that
her references to Christianity would somehow violate the First
Amendment because they would constitute a prohibited establishment of
religion. Maybe the school officials ought to be reminded about what
an establishment of religion actually looks like. The
House Judiciary Committee Report of 1853-1854 describes what is
required for something to be a religious establishment:
It
must have a creed defining what a man must believe; it must have
rites and ordinances which believers must observe; it must have
ministers of defined qualifications to teach the doctrines and
administer the rites; it must have tests for the submissive and
penalties for the nonconformist. 1
The
Senate Judiciary Committee provides even more insight:
The
clause speaks of ‘an establishment of religion’. What is meant
by that expression? It referred, without doubt, to that
establishment which existed in the mother-country . . . . [which was
an] endowment, at the public expense, in exclusion of or in
preference to any other, by giving its members exclusive political
rights, and by compelling attendance of those who rejected its
communion upon its worship or religious observances. 2
So,
the question is whether Miss McComb was actually creating a national
church by mentioning Jesus in her valedictorian speech. It is hard
to believe that any reasonable person would think so, therefore it is
safe to conclude that her speech did not in fact violate the First
Amendment. If anything, what was truly violated were her First
Amendment rights to express her religious views, even if some people
don't like them.
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