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Freedom From Religion

By Bill Cathcart

Vice President and General Manager of WTOC TV

(Originally aired on WTOC News Monday, June 26th. Enthusiastically reprinted with permission.)

Recently, Brittany McComb, class valedictorian at a Nevada high school, was early into the delivery of her graduation-day speech, when school officials suddenly cut off her microphone. A rare and certainly extreme move.

Had the class's academic leader abused her podium privileges by letting fly with a few profanities or going-off on some other form of objectionable speech? Well, no, but then to a sliver few, yes. You see Brittany's sin, while standing proudly before her classmates and guests, was her resolve to speak publicly about her religious faith, including, gasp, use of the words "God" and "Christ." Well, we just can't have that, concluded nervous, or perhaps nerve-less, school officials, so they pulled the plug, claiming that, by her words, Brittany was "proselytizing," even though no students had yet rushed the stage to convert to Christianity.

Said Brittany: "I went through four years of school here, (where, among other things), they taught me freedom of speech. God's the biggest part of my life. Just like other valedictorians thank their parents, I wanted to thank my lord and savior." But such was not to be, as school officials dutifully enforced freedom from religion for all those present.

Oh, and no surprise, the ACLU strongly supported their decision. The only saving grace: the act of cutting off the mic was met with several minutes of sustained boo-ing from the over four-hundred seniors and their families in attendance.

Next, we move to an elementary school in Texas, whose 2006 yearbook cover sported an enlarged rendering of the re-designed U.S. nickel coin, chosen because, like the school, that nickel was also brand new. There was just one thing missing from the yearbook nickel: the words "In God We Trust," our national motto, which, as with the new nickel, appears prominently on all U.S. currency.  Sent home with the children, instead, was a sticker, containing our motto, to be affixed by all those who might be inclined to show proper respect and reverence for both God, and His country, our nation.

No surprise, the ACLU, once again, strongly supported the school's God-less nickel. Yet another school administration committed to freedom from religion, so that no one's self-esteem might falter. Oh, and you'll love this. The school's name is Liberty Elementary. The president of Liberty's PTA was later quoted as saying: "We're a public school. We sure don't want to step on anybody's toes."

Well, sir, you did. A whole lot of them. And all to avoid upsetting, at best, perhaps a couple of nation-conflicted, fringe-dwellers who object to America's God-entrusted motto, but who persist in living here, and seem content to use our money anyway.

In fairness, the problem is this. School officials are being held hostage by the ill-considered, self-serving decisions that have spewed forth from those of our nation's hard left, pro-socialist federal courts over the last four decades. Bending over backwards to make, absolute, the ever-more-punitive "church and state separation" concept, that, as you well know, appears nowhere in the Constitution, not even by inference. Keeping all references to religion away from public eyes and ears comes from the same absurd "progressive" mind-set that anointed domestic American flag burning with supposed First Amendment protection.

Both sets of decisions are absolute rubbish and rightfully belong in the nation's dumpster. Look, well over eighty-percent of Americans, in poll after poll, proclaim a belief in God. Long past time for that huge majority, together with today's growing breed of more conservative, common-sense-prone legislators and jurists, to stop the PC nonsense, stop worrying about the relative few who are determined to get their self-centered, thin-skinned feelings hurt. And for those who do, take a pill, lie down and get over it!

This nation needs to stop worshipping ultra-liberal courts and their tradition-flaunting, flower-child decisions, and get back to worshipping, with reverent respect, our Creator in Heaven. Get back to the very public religious tradition of our founding fathers, one of devotion and subservience to God Almighty, from whom all blessings, indeed, do flow.

Failing that, America risks fulfilling the grand dream of our domestic socialists, as we sink even further toward their goal of becoming the world's newest, and sorriest, atheist nation.