It’s not every day a high school valedictorian speech becomes national news. That’s the case for the valedictorian of Liberty High School in South Carolina. Roy Costner IV created controversy after he ripped his pre-approved speech only to then recite the Lord’s Prayer, word for word. Costner did so in protest because the school district removed prayer at graduation ceremonies.
Here’s a clip of his speech:
You might be surprised to read, but I don’t think it was appropriate of him to recite the prayer. Liberty High School is a public school. Therefore, you have to be respectful of other students with differing religions or those who are atheists. This would have been perfectly appropriate at a religious institution.
There are many supporters of his actions. They applaud him for expressing his 1st Amendment Rights. However, I wonder if any of those same people would have a problem if say he was Muslim and he began his speech with a prayer from the Qur’an. I think there would be even more controversy over this had he been.
I don’t like to always be politically correct, but in this case I don’t think he should have recited the prayer.
What do you think?
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Twitter: @adrakontaidis & @talkrealdebate
