Court Decisions: One Good, One Bad

Radio Commentary, 90.7, 91.7, 107.1 New Life FM, December 31, 2010
By Sue Ella Deadwyler

Good morning, Jim. On this New Year’s Eve, I’m glad to report a legal victory for free speech. Just last month in a 5 to 1 decision, the Montana Supreme Court ruled in favor of religious freedom at school. The case was brought against the Butte School District because school officials wouldn’t let valedictorian Renee Griffin mention “God” and “Christ” in her 2008 high school commencement remarks. Since her constitutional rights were denied, The Rutherford Institute represented her free-of-charge and won the case. That decision upheld the rights of all Americans to freely speak of their religious beliefs … even in public schools.

But for a university student here in Georgia, the battle was not won. It was lost. This past July, 24-year-old Jennifer Keeton was a graduate student working on a master’s degree in counseling at Augusta State University. Her credentials were good, but moral values got her suspended. In filing her court case, Jennifer said the school threatened to expel her if she didn’t go through sensitivity training to erase her belief that homosexuality is immoral and a chosen lifestyle.

She contacted the Alliance Defense Fund’s coalition of Christian attorneys and they took her case. In a press release the ADF stated that no university should threaten to expel students for being Christian and refusing to publicly renounce their faith. However, the federal court ruled in favor of Augusta State University and Jennifer was not reinstated.

A similar case was dismissed last July. In 2009 Julea Ward was removed from the Eastern Michigan University counseling program for refusing to counsel homosexual clients. She was charged with violating school policy and the American Counseling Association code of ethics. ADF also handled her case and explained that the court did what no federal court had ever done. It upheld an extremely broad and vague speech code that was set by a university.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all of us reflected Christian values that made this country great and reclaimed our priceless constitutional freedoms? Now, that’s a resolution I could live with! Happy New Year! For Georgia Insight I’m Sue Ella Deadwyler, your Capitol correspondent.