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Jewish World Review June 3, 1999 /19 Sivan 5759

Cal Thomas

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The Creator and Commencement

(JWR) ---- (http://www.jewishworldreview.com)
SOMETHING QUITE REMARKABLE happened last week at a high school graduation in Calvert County, Maryland. It wasn't that the American Civil Liberties Union had intervened on behalf of a lone student who said he would be offended if a fellow graduate went ahead with her plans to deliver an invocation at commencement. The religious version of "ethnic cleansing'' happens all the time, from the courthouse to the schoolhouse. Seventeen-year-old Julie Schenk, who wanted to deliver the invocation, compromised and announced that she would instead call for a "time for reflection'' that did not mention God.

That seemed fine with everybody, including the ACLU. But when Schenk asked for 30 seconds of silence and the crowd of 4,000 rose, a single loud male voice began reciting the Lord's Prayer, which begins, "Our Father, who art in heaven.'' The prayer was quickly picked up by others in the audience until it rolled like thunder across the room.

The student who had protested the offering of an audible prayer, 18-year-old Nick Becker, walked out. When he tried to reenter to receive his diploma, he was barred by authorities under a school policy that forbids students from returning to an assembly once they have left. Becker has been described as having an independent streak. Last year he was forced to wash his hair when he came to school with it in spikes resembling the Statue of Liberty, and he had also refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and was about to be disciplined when the ACLU intervened. He was put in a patrol car until commencement ended. Becker was also barred from a post-graduation boat cruise that was limited to those who had participated in the ceremony.

What amazes about this incident is that the audience reaction seems to have been spontaneous. Indeed, an ACLU spokesperson appeared frustrated when she noted the corporate prayer wasn't initiated by graduates or school officials. Nor did the prayer specifically mention "God,'' only "Our Father,'' so technically it might be said to have been in compliance.

Perhaps this is the "virtue'' empire striking back at the ravenously and increasingly secularized culture that seems powerless to stem the Godforsaken tide of violence and corruption among us. For decades we have been told that the price we all must pay for a healthy First Amendment is the toleration of the most disgusting filth oozing through every pore of our society and culture. Creeps, louts, pornographers, blasphemers, alternative lifestylers, fornicators, adulterers, liars, slanderers and other forms of human rubbish enjoy the full protection of the law, but those who believe in God and order their lives accordingly, and who wish to participate in the pluralism and diversity which they hear so much about (but which never seems to apply to them) are increasingly losing their rights to be heard in the same public places occupied by those dedicated to tearing down, not building up, society.

What these Maryland parents and friends of graduates discovered was a power they had forgotten they had. Frustrated by the aimlessness of Washington and its inability to do anything except focus on the self-preservation and survival of the politically unfit, the audience at the Calvert County graduation decided to practice what "We the people'' actually means. As their forebears did with immoral and tyrannical British rule, they stood up and spoke out for, and to, an Authority higher than the state. When those Marylanders were told they had no right to speak of God publicly, they chose to speak to God.

When Rosa Parks decided she would not obey an immoral law that required her to sit at the back of the bus because her skin color was not white, she inspired a civil rights movement that is ongoing. Maybe those prayer protesters are the Rosa Parks of the secularist '90s. When the people speak, there's nothing the ACLU or anyone else can do about it.


Up

05/28/99: The Cox Committee Report
05/26/99: 'A turning point for our country'
05/24/99: Barak is not Israel's savior
05/19/99: It takes a leader
05/17/99: Questions for Gov. Bush and the others
05/12/99: OAF-ish behavior explains U.S. mistakes
05/07/99: Israel's high-stakes election
05/04/99: Jeb Bush chooses to save kids, not institutions
04/26/99: Surrendering our civilization
04/26/99: War abroad, war at home
04/22/99: Those wild and crazy (Democrat) tax-cutters
04/16/99: Bubba’s contemptible behavior
04/14/99:Elizabeth Dole's choice
04/09/99: The taxman cometh
04/05/99: MEMO: MAKE LOVE AND WAR -- AND KEEP IT SIMPLE
03/30/99: Human-rights terror in China
03/25/99: Yasser Arafat:
bad cop, worse cop
03/23/99: Bubba’s multiplied lies
03/18/99: Reinventing AlGore
03/16/99:Americans get bull while China shops
03/12/99: Bill Lan Lee: Flouting the law
03/09/99: Don't worry about your child, be happy
03/08/99:The ‘lady' is a tramp
03/04/99: Proving myself to President Clinton
02/24/99: New slaves to a new slavery
02/22/99: Character-plus
02/19/99: GOP losers tell winner how to win
02/17/99: The Clinton legacy
02/10/99: More a man, less a president

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