Singing about God should be legal By Warren Bluhm News-Chronicle What a long, strange trip this school year has been. The journey began with a controversy over a Southern Door High School student's nose stud and comes to an end with a fuss over a Winneconne High School senior's plan to sing a song about God at her graduation ceremony. In between, the Green Bay School District grappled with parents' objections to a book that contained graphic sexual imagery and profanity. All three schools responded to the controversy by acting reasonably. The ban on pierced noses was lifted in Southern Door. The book "The Lords of Discipline" was not banned, but was moved from "required" to "optional" reading in Green Bay. The song "He's Always Been Faithful" will be sung in Winneconne, complete with those shocking lyrics, "God has been faithful, He will be again/His loving compassion, it knows no end." All three controversies were about cultural limits and the First Amendment. In Southern Door the question was how many piercings the school should tolerate on one student's body. In Green Bay the question was at what age the school should expose young people to a book with "adult" language and themes. In Winneconne the question was whether to allow a student to declare her religious beliefs out loud. In all three cases the First Amendment won. Not long ago Milwaukee radio host Mark Belling said, "The most obnoxious evangelists are atheists." By that he meant no group of believers works harder to force its values on the rest of us than the nonbelievers. I've been finding the angriest and nastiest criticism I receive comes when I suggest that talking about Jesus or Allah or Buddha in public places is not the same thing as the government "establishment of religion" that is prohibited by the First Amendment. But I have to risk the wrath of the "freedom from religion" gang again, because the Winneconne School District's initial ruling was wrong. The government is not endorsing religion when it allows a girl to sing and speak freely about what inspires her, any more than it endorses Ozzy Osborne's drug habits when it allows the pep band to play "Iron Man." There's probably a court somewhere that has ruled otherwise, but that court is wrong, too. Fear of the evangelists for atheism probably fueled the original decision. The graduation committee asked the girl to sing "He" and "His" instead of "God" at three places in the song, which was written by Sara Groves and comes from her album "Conversations." It's too bad the girl's parents had to hire an attorney to convince the school otherwise. There is one wonderful side benefit to all the publicity this incident has generated: A bunch of people will go out and buy "Conversations" to see what the fuss was all about. Sara Groves is a tremendously gifted singer-songwriter who deserves the attention. Warren Bluhm is editor of the Door County Advocate. He can be contacted at 920-743-3321 or by e-mail at [email protected].