NYCparalegal

Oh Gawd!

I wonder how her mom or she would react if a Hindu student were chosen and decided to sing an ode to Vishnu or a Buddhist student decided to chant OM.....

What's the point of singing at a graduation instead of giving the regular speech anyway? Oh boy, I hate graduations...

If she loves God so much, she may as well keep it private... in her church, she can praise god as much as she wants...

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

paul30

I vaguely remember the words of a Jewish wise man who said, "When you pray, do not pray like the Pharisees who go to the street corner and make a display. Pray in private to god who is in private."

Now what was that Jewish guy's name?????

Jewel

Yep. Appearantly, some people believe that the First Amendment means they should be able to push their superstitious beliefs on anyone at any time -- no matter what. And when they are met with resistance they start acting like martyrs. :banghead:

Tony

Interesting, what song an atheist would sing?

Beatles: “…Imagine no religion…”?

I think that it’s not enough just to replace “god” with “he”.

First of all, we don’t know the gender of god. What if god is “she”? Or else?

People, who believe, that god is a woman, might sue the school for sexism.

Second of all, if this song will be permitted, other religious students will have to sing their religious songs. Where it leaves us – atheists?

Atheists of the world, unite!

We need a song!

No, we need A LOT OF songs to compensate all religious songs.

PostScript:

I came from communist country. Please don’t sing about communism…
:boohoo:

Enigma

I'm wondering if bringing doing MC Hawking's "Entropy" would be out of the question?

atheist_in_foxhole

How about these for starters?

Javaman

Just putting the link toThe MC Hawking MP3's for those that haven't heard (of) them.

Sabine Grant

I do not even think that case belongs as part of religious rights.......moreso the freedom of speech. A graduating student ought to be able to mention anyone he or she believes worthy of being mentionned in his or her speech. We cannot restrict the freedom of an individual to express thoughts.
A prayer becomes an act of religious practise...and it probably also pertains to the act of singing a religious hymn. In those cases, I would not support the presence of prayer or hymn singing or any kind of spiritual practise in a graduation speech.
I fully agree it should be a speech. However, I strongly support the right for any individual to quote, refer to any book author etc he or she wishes to include in his or her speech. And if that student happens to have a religious preference to quote from, I do not believe anyone has a constitutional justification to prohibit it.

Toto

If the individual in question is in a public forum and brings her own soapbox, she can say anything she wants to. But when she is part of an officially sanctioned event on public property and the school district pays for the microphone, the school district does have a right and an obligation to keep religious practices out of the speech.

Tony

Thanks for the links to the songs!