TAMPA, Florida (PNN) - December 17, 2013 - Zachary Golob-Drake, a 5th grader at the Patel Partnership School in Tampa Florida, was elated recently when he won first place with a speech and an invitation to compete in the 4-H Tropicana Public Speech Contest. However, the fascist pig assistant principal then told him that he would be stripped of his honor because she did not like the topic of his speech: the history of people using religion to justify murder.
This is just the latest example of how free speech principles are routinely denied to students in public school. Here is a boy who takes on a difficult and highly advanced subject, but is told that he must either give up the First Amendment or his first place prize.
Zachary reportedly had a paragraph that drew a comparison between the Crusades, Genghis Khan, and the events of Sept. 11, 2001. Pretty advanced connections for a fifth grader. However, the fascist pig assistant principal demanded that he drop references to religion or give up his first place prize. In the meantime, she took away his ribbon, leaving him in tears when his big brother showed up to pick up Zachary. To his credit, his brother got the fascist pig assistant principal to give back the ribbon and then Zachary’s mother got involved.
In Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, the Supreme Court supported the first amendment rights of Iowa residents John F. Tinker (15 years old), John’s younger sister Mary Beth Tinker (13 years old), and their friend Christopher Eckhardt (16 years old) in wearing black armbands in protest of the Vietnam War. In his majority decision, Justice Abe Fortas held that “undifferentiated fear or apprehension of disturbance is not enough to overcome the right to freedom of expression.” In a statement that would seem to fit this case, Fortas found that “the record does not demonstrate any facts which might reasonably lead school authorities to forecast substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities, and no disturbances or disorders on the school premises in fact occurred.” Since Tinker, the Supreme Court has steadily limited the speech rights of students as in the ruling in the “Bong Hits For Jesus” case.
The school district’s spokeswoman, Tanya Arja, then stated publicly that it was not really about religion but “[t]he concern was over the topic of mass murders, because these are 4th and 5th graders.”
I would think that a school would be supportive of a fifth grader who is taking on such difficult subjects. Below is Zachary’s speech, which is balanced and insightful. Ironically, it is about intolerance and ignorance = clearly not purely historical concerns.
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In the Name of Religion
The world’s major religions all have messages about coexisting. But oftentimes people have found a way to bend that rule; sometimes people even use religion as an excuse to take each other’s lives. The three major religions on the earth include the Eastern religions, Islam, and Christianity. About one billion people live by the Eastern religions; about 1.4 billion are Muslim; and about 2.3 billion are Christians. Religious differences have always sparked conflict, even leading to warfare and mass murder.
One of the most famous tensions is the Crusades. Beginning in 1065, the Crusades were a series of holy wars that were fought between Christians and Muslims. It was the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Urban II, who initiated the first wave of attacks. The European Christian’s intent was to force Christianity upon the Muslim people and to win back the Holy Land, known as Jerusalem. They were some of the bloodiest wars ever fought.
In 1162, about the time the Crusades ended, Genghis Khan was born; he was later crowned Emperor of Mongolia. Khan was a powerful ruler who conquered many lands and civilizations, which inevitably caused the Mongolian Empire to grow. Khan became so powerful that people considered him a god. Khan was known to tell his victims before causing their deaths, “I am the flail of God; for if you were without sin, he would not have sent me upon you.”
For anyone who thinks religious tensions have ended, they have not. Modern terrorism often has to do with religion. Take the story of 9/11, for example. On September 11, 2001, hijackers commandeered two jets and intentionally crashed them into the Twin Towers in New York, killing thousands of unsuspecting civilians. It has been confirmed that the hijackers were Islamic extremists who wanted to punish the United States for its immoral behavior.
Religion provides moral guidance for most of the seven billion people on the earth. More than 2,500 years ago, Confucius offered guidance through the Golden Rule when he said, “Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you.” Both Jesus and Muhammad echoed these sentiments hundreds of years later. This world would be a better place if everybody followed that rule.
Ed. Note: Even though Zachary is incorrect about the events of September 11, 2001, I have still posted his speech. The point of this story has nothing to do with the events of September 11, 2001. It has everything to do with the repression of free speech being perpetrated today by bureaucrats and officials of the Fascist Police States of Amerika.