So it's okay for this girl to think there's an imaginary man living in the clouds, but she crosses the line when she thinks he had a half-human son? Seems like a very strange place to draw a line. Separation of church and state should mean no religious crap outside of church doors.

The Founders' intent is well known: to prohibit the state from endorsing any one religious stream over another. State churches were essentially a universal phenomenon in Europe, and our Founding Fathers did not want to see that here. To go further is to impose postmodernist biases on what was, to its authors, a clear declaration. Acknowledging (a) god is acceptable, under these terms, but promoting a specific set of theological postulates is not. When she turned her speech to Jesus, Brittany crossed a Constitutional line. It is not incumbent on the state to either avow or disavow the existence of a diety; it IS incumbent on government to avoid the least support for any particular theological, religious view of the diety.

How does one decide whose rights we protect. On one hand she was shut down when it came to the freedom of speech spill, but others got their "seperation of church and state" crap. Some don't want religion outside of the church but they are the same people that will push something or some idea so far up your (fill in the blank) that it makes you want to hit something. I learned at a young age that if you don't want to hear something....don't listen. If you don't agree....then leave it at that, you just don't agree. why does everyone look so much into every little thing these days. Realize that life is too short to worry yourself if one person is going to say something you don't agree with. You might not want to hear anything about religion but chances are is that your preaching something that no one really wants to hear but people listen anyway. Religion is what you want it to be.

Whatever happened to Freedom of Speech? This young lady had something to say, and was denied that right. Would it have been better if she talked about being a drugged whore? All this crap is what is destroying our country and turning it from a melting pot into a salad bowl.

She won her right to speak by her achievement. The school chose to honor this individual. Once she mounts that platform to speak she has a constitutional right to speak her mind honestly. The idea that her opinion can be censored because the location is on public property or during a government sponsored event places a limit on all Americans first amendment rights.

There is nothing "liberal" about shutting people up. The idea that we're attacking religious speech, the very first right guaranteed in the Constitution, because people are "offended" is an outrage. These same phony libs lionize Lenny Bruce because he offended people.

This is an organized campaign to limit the free speech rights of Americans by godless prudes. These same secular puritans want to control what we eat, drink & think. I'm sick of these jerks and the cowardly bureaucrats that bow to their demands.

OH THIS JESUS STUFF IS SO TIRESOME BECAUSE SHE JUST DOESNT EXCIST, THERE IS NO THERE THERE!

I'm a card carrying member of the ACLU. I think
she had the right to make any kind of speech she
wanted. I would hope however that some of the people "using" the First Amendment to justify her
obvious endorsement of Christianity would also support her if she had made a speech endorsing
athiesm, wicca or even devil worship. If its ok
for one, then it has to be ok for all.

What a sad event. Here a very bright intelligent girl is honored and all the school and ACLU can do is pull her down to their level. She is merely doing what her lord and savior instructed her to do. It is in the bible, the most read book of all time, and historically accurate and undisputed. She was sharing his glory by expressing her beliefs. ACLU would prefer to tear down and divide the country. We as christrians need to begin to stand up and express ourselves. We are not saying you must believe all we are doing is sharing the excitment of knowing Jesus. Whether you wish to believe is your own choice and we would never force or judge your own personal choices.

Offering a personal experience in accepting Jesus as a role model would apparently have been acceptable, right? Or is the existence of this real, historical person also to be denied when speaking in a government-sponsored forum?

Would the school have dared repeat the act of censorship for a student professing faith in Buddha, Allah, or Krishna?

Censorship, like free speech, is also a slippery slope. Shouldn't atheism and agnosticism be censored as well, since to promote these ideas would amount to a government endorsement of irreligion?

Why not just let "community standards" be the guideline, so that freedom of speech is preserved for schoolkids in equal measure to all other groups in the local community?

Tiresome. Old. Whiney.

Every third page of American newsprint now contains a story about some aggrieved 'Christian' throwing a tantrum because the rest of us apparently are out to get them.

This young lady was prosthelyzing to a captive audience...AND in one of the most special moments of THEIR lives. Should non-Christians or (and this is important) Christians who might actually worship differently than Brittany McComb be forced to have to recall their own graduation day as part landmark event...part church service? The school acted properly...it treated her ideas of faith with respect...to a point. At that point, it respected the opinions of those who had no choice but to listen to her.

The visible faith of Christ in America is alas spending almost all its' time now on the sleeves of the sanctimonoius, Christians who in many cases have a faith as plastic as the fish on their bumpers. The photo above says it all. Brittany is a Christian, and proud of it. Never mind that pride, from the very start of the religion she professes to understand, has been not a virtue, but a sin.

Our founding fathers would be shocked and distraught over the way the concept of "religious freedom" has been perverted to become a weapon against all religions, morals and values.

The Founding Fathers never intended this. They created a nation UNDER GOD, expressing their belief in God (and, frequently, in Christ and Christianity) in the documents that formed our nation, on the buildings they erected, and on the money they circulated.

In the past fifty years we have lost sight of the true meaning of religious freedom. It does not mean a society free from religion or religious values and morals. That's not "religious freedom," it's religious intollerence. Religious freedom is supposed to mean we have a society that is tolerant of varying religions and religious ideas.

Our Constitution gives this young woman the right to freely express herself, especially when it comes to her religion. Her school was wrong, those that support its actions are wrong.

What I don't understand is why do they think allowing a student to mention Jesus in a veledictorian speech equates to the school endorsing Christianity above all other religions. I think everyone in the audience is smart enough to realize that her beliefs and opinions are just that: HERS. If she had stated the sky was purple in her speech, would the school have edited it out to prevent the entire audience simulaneously looking up in horror?

This isn't just about keeping religion out of schools. It is about keeping the PREACHING out of schools.

By the way, separation of church and state does appear in the constitution--in the establishment clause of the First Amendment. (Read your constitution).

By picking a student to deliver a speech at a school-sponsored function, and having the speech approved in advance by the school, the school is, in effect, sponsoring the speech. I think the school acted appropriately by allowing the student to describe her personal feelings about God, but not to preach a particular religion to the graduating students. This is entirely consistent with the First Amendment (both the free speech and establishment clauses) and, in my opinion, strikes a fair balance.

The student at issue here has every right to preach to people in a private setting, such as her church or her home. She is not being deprived of her rights at all.