<p>We also have the national anthem sung by students at graduation. I am sure that some who are attending have objections, for religious or other reasons. Some actually find it offensive. Should we stop singing the national anthem because it makes them uncomfortable?</p>
<p>This young man is not employed by the school district. I have heard many valedictorian speeches. Some great, some horrible. His strikes me as neither, of course, because he ripped his speech up in favor of making a statement…that he still has the right to voice his beliefs in public and that he doesn’t have to be quiet just because some in the crowd have a different religion. He wasn’t bringing prayer into schools, teaching it in the classroom, forcing everyone else to pray, or even to listen. He was simply reciting a prayer out loud in public, unashamedly acknowledging his parents, his ubringing and his faith. That should be allowed in the United States.</p>
<p>Why shouldn’t it? If he were to be silenced you have an issue about religious intolerance. Since it was the individual who said what he thought and not the school or official of the school then what law was broken?</p>
<p>This is a no win situation for anyone on either side.</p>
<p>I’m not really comfortable with “official” prayers at public school events, but I do think it’s fine for a speaker, speaking about him or herself, to discuss his faith and to pray. I would believe that of a person of any faith.</p>
<p>I think it was tasteless and unnecessary, but certainly not illegal. He has a right to say it but people have a right to do a lot of things that they don’t do out of respect for others.</p>
<p>I don’t like the ripping up of the speech and making a spectacle. I find that tasteless and disrespectful of the occasion, but had he made a normal speech in which he said “the words I live by are” and then the prayer or something else, it would have been fine with me.</p>
<p>Had the principal said “let us pray” my head would have spun around.</p>
You may be one who is fine with it one way or other
but I don’t know if that same group who cheered a Christian student would be cheering a valedictorian who recites some verses from the Koran, or whatever verses a Buhdist , or Atheist may say.</p>
<p>I have a rhetorical question. If everybody in the audience was Christian, something quite possible given it was in the Bible belt, would saying a prayer still be an offensive act?</p>
Why would not know that? Do you think that people who cheer Christian students are bigots? Do you think that non-Christians universally don’t support personal expression?</p>
<p>ZM, yes that’s what I was referencing. Thank you for putting it better than i could :). The whole show of it, which IMO is much much different than simply talking about your faith and how important God is in your life or anything like that. That’s perfectly fine IMO but that’s not what this was.</p>
<p>If you want atheism in school, why not send your kid to an atheist school?</p>
<p>There is a fundamental difference between having a school that is not religious and not allowing a religious student to express his religion in school. What you tyrants are all saying is that if you want to exercise your natural rights, your First Amendment rights, then you must pay money to a private entity. (Given that there are mandatory attendance requirements - that whole truancy thing - the choices are public school that you pay for with your tax dollars, or paying for public school with your tax dollars and then sending your kid to private school.)</p>
<p>Upon second thought, I see your point. If you want to express your gay self, then go to a school set up specifically for gays and their allies, instead of using school funds and facilities to set up Gay-Straight Alliances. After all, there is more constitutional protection to the expression of religion than there is to the expression of sexuality. </p>
<p>Ohhhh, you would all throw a fit if that happened - but it’s okay to do it to those evil, repressive, scary, anti-intellectual religious rubes, huh?</p>
<p>I don’t know if the same people condemning this boy as intolerant for his prayer would condemn a Muslim or Buddhist as intolerant of others for saying their prayer even if the majority of the audience shared that religion.</p>
I would have smashed my kid with a brick (not really) if he embarrassed me that way. However, I have always discussed clearly and openly the consequences of failing to conduct themselves appropriately to a particular occasion. I have a son who grunts, points and wipes his mouth on his sleeve, but put him in a formal, professional or academic setting and he stands up straight, makes eye contact, speaks clearly and is clean.</p>
<p>I would not even remotely have been amused if my son had done this. But I wouldn’t have been bothered to politely listen to any prayer that was found meaningful to a speaker.</p>
Sometimes the approach is not to be unreligious but to embrace every religion because I think the point is not to make one religion “official” in any way. I’ve been in school events that shared Christian, Jewish, Islamic and Budhist practices all in the same place. Equally.</p>
<p>romanigypsyeyes, and what about this boy’s actions makes the whole school religious? The school IS secular. An individual within the school is a Christian. Many are. Some are probably of other faiths, or no proclaimed faith. He merely spoke. Again, he did not force anyone to do anything, he did not ask anyone to pray with him, although some did, he did not ask anyone to believe what he believes, he is not an employee of the school. He was merely freely speaking and expressing his religion…which are both rights, which obviously many would like to be squashed…because they might offend someone.</p>
<p>And Bay…Not sure what makes him not appear smart? Is it dumb to pray? Is it dumb to acknowledge the things he did? Did you watch the video?</p>
<p>If Jesus explicitly told his followers to go into their closet and pray in secret, and never offered public prayer himself, why can’t his so-called followers take the hint?</p>
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