freedom for who?

While reading our government textbook I was reminded of a conversation I had with my debate teacher about the separation of church and state. At our school’s graduation ceremony student speech, the officer always inserts something along the lines of “god blesses you all you go off to college.” She believes this makes some students uncomfortable, especially when the top students at school are those of Buddhist decent. This raises an interesting question. Does a student speech in school violate the first amendment? While the student is not employed by the state and therefore does not represent the will or opinions of the school or government, the speech is still being given at a school event which the school should be held somewhat accountable for. But in doing so would the school be violating the rights of the student? After all it is unlikely that any action would be taken against the student if he or she said “god bless you” to every student individually. So where do we draw the line? The first amendment is in place to prevent citizens from being alienated for and able to practice their beliefs, whatever they may be. Any student who is made to sit in place while surrounded by others who are openly expressing their religious ideals would feel both trapped and isolated. A mob mentality might also influence the students in such a way that they will begin to doubt their faiths, something that the parents of our nation have expressed strong feelings against. Personally I don’t consider a student given speech to be an unconstitutional influence over the religious rights of others since the speech is simply the thoughts of the student so long as it’s limited to a few sentences at most, and doesn’t push the religion on others. “God bless you” is only meant to be positive words of encouragement, which I believe should be allowed as such.

Freedom of speech, or harassment and violation

Sadly, I’m going to have to agree with the majority of comments on this one, buy I will voice my outrage in the loophole. Our soldiers are out there dying so that we can enjoy the freedom to say whatever we want without the government being able so censer us. Even when our views are in complete opposition to the norm or most popular, its usually important to listen to their views to reach a greater understanding of others, allowing us to share ideas, beliefs and values. But I have some reasons why this is obviously not the case here as evidence by how their protest moves form free speech to something grotesque. The church thinks our soldiers are being killed because we tolerate gays and abortion. That’s all well and good. I say let them say they want everyone to be less tolerant and deny happiness for our citizens because other people don’t like it. It’s hypocritical given that they’re just giving in and denying us the freedoms that allow them to say such things, but its all well and good. Let them have their church meetings on Sundays preaching whatever they want. Where they crossed the line was going to the funeral of the soldier and spreading their message in a private venue. Now granted I’m not all that enlightened about the specifics of the first amendment, but it seems to me that if its illegal for a single person to go to your house (private property) and harass you about any matter, it should also be illegal for a mob of people to harass you at a cemetery you own a piece of (even a small plot of land where you’re son is buried.) I’m not arguing the church’s right to say whatever it wants. Let them march on the capitol or down the streets waving their "Thank God for dead soldiers" signs all they want. The difference is that this funeral was a private venue. An event for the family of the dead soldier. There wasn’t anyone there with enough political power to do anything about the soldiers being at war. Who were they even protesting? The Father? The cemetery? The dead body? What’s he going do about it? What can he do about it? NOTHING. Besides the media attention that could have been generated form a non offensive public area, they chose to harass the father of a dead soldier. I’m all for free speech, but that’s not what these people were doing. They crashed a funeral and only gave more grief and sadness to a already pained father the man should get some kind of reparations for that.