The problem with Ericas mindset is that she believes that god trumps everything else. Indeed what true believer would not. People like Torqemarda could engage in the most horrific acts because they honestly believed they were saving peoples souls. Terrorists can perform suicide bombings because they believe they are doing the right thing.

How could you trust a woman like Erica if you knew that she would happily break agreements and rules if she thought the voice in her head wanted her too.

This brings up another Wheaton student who sued his high school at about the same time. Chase Harper was suspended from his public high school in 2006 for wearing a shirt that said “homosexuality is shameful” in protest on the Day of Silence. He then founded the Day of Truth together with the Alliance Defense Fund in response.

Chase was featured on the front page of the Wheaton student newspaper during his freshman year (my senior year), along with a photo of him wearing the black t-shirt with “homosexuality is shameful” written on white masking tape across the front. An hour after the newspaper came out, I was stomping through the student center in anger. To my delight, on the student bulletin board was a huge poster board cut-out of a black t-shirt with a masking tape label that said “Chase Harper is shameful”. An hour later it was gone, but I was so glad to have seen it before it was taken down. It gave me hope that not all of my classmates were douchebags.

I think if she would have been honest and up front and came to a compromise with the school, they would not have had any issue with a speech that wasn’t outright preachy, but able to mention her beliefs in how they helped her in school.

Having recently attended a HS graduation where 4 students got to speak for a minute or two each – I couldn’t begin to tell you what any of them said. All my graduating daughter could recall is that one of them cried.

I do remember that it was hot and stuffy in the gym, and my butt was going numb from sitting too long, but not the content of any of the speeches.

There are other ways she could have handled it. She seems to have known ahead of time that her religious mini-speech would raise objections. If she had submitted an accurate draft of her intended speech, she might have been able to negotiate with the school, discuss their concerns with them and perhaps could have come up with some mutually acceptable solution. Or if the school remained adamant, she could have refused to speak at all, and publicized her protest in the local paper, putting the embarrassment on the school and putting herself in the righteous role.

Instead, she put herself into the questionable position of at the very least implying that her religion sanctifies lying and breaking agreements, and then later in her interview with Hemant above, she stated that she’d do it again if she felt that God was calling her to do that. That remark raises a host of other objectionable implications that are much more alarming than her original tort.

This.

Hemant: Has this case affected you in any way in college?

Since Wheaton is a primarily fundagelical christian college I don’t see why it would affect her in a negative way.

Rules are rules and she broke them. She not only deviated from them but she also lied.

She took it to court and she lost.

Again, had she espoused her belief in Islam, FSM or anything else there likely would have been an uproar and the Christians would have been leading the charge.

She not only broke the rules, but she lied. Shame on her.

And what a waste of taxpayer dollars by taking it to court.

The point is that she had one speech approved and totally derailed off-topic.