Thank God for WRKN in Tennessee, which revealed to the world (PDF) the fortitude, wisdom and conviction of Harpeth High School Valedictorian Amelia Bivens. Bivens fully exercised her First Amendment rights when she defied an illegal order to remove a Bible verse from her valedictorian speech and read from it anyway to explain the forces that have driven her to her success.

It is not an establishment of religion to speak about faith. Rather, it is protected speech that the Founders of our great nation thought so essential to a free society that they included it in our Constitution as the first part of the Bill of Rights. The Tennessee constitution also protects these rights in Article I, Sections 2 and 3.

Whichever administrator at Harpeth High School in Cheatham County is responsible for attempting to censer Ms. Bivens should be ashamed of himself or herself, and maybe even dismissed from employment. It is the height of tyranny to attempt to censor speech, particularly speech that is uplifting and nourishing. In fact, it is unconstitutional to force atheism as a state religion on the people of the United States, and whomever is responsible for the original censorship attempt is guilty of trying to establish that religion.

Our nation is under attack from within by people who want to tear apart the very foundation of our freedom; namely, our faith in God and the morality it encourages. These tyrants have had some success by removing mention of God from our school textbooks and classrooms and punishing school employees simply trying to exercise their right to express their religious beliefs. The result has been generations of people who hold no regard for common decency and horrifying events such as the school shootings that began at Columbine High School in Colorado. When God and the mention of our religious foundation are removed from the classroom and the textbooks, it is impossible to correctly teach common decency, let alone the true history of our great land.

We the People of this nation have let enemies within our borders get too far into their destructive agenda, and it is now time that we fight back. When a student is told she cannot explain the forces that drove her success in a speech that is supposed to highlight those very inspirations, it is time to say "NO!, we're simply not going to listen to you anymore." No one has the authority over another to tell them what they can and cannot say. Harpeth High School Valedictorian Amelia Bivens should be commended as an American hero, reclaiming an inalienable right that no one has the right to take from her.

I do hope that Harpeth High School will take a lesson from Ms. Bivens, who has shown far more wisdom, knowledge and understanding than school administrators. I also hope that Ms. Bivens' courageous act in defense of liberty becomes a rallying cry for students and teachers, if not people everywhere, across this nation. No man, woman or child should ever submit to any order in violation of their most basic human rights.

With that, I leave you with Ms. Bivens' words and ask you to think very deeply about what she said. If you're an honest person, you will know in your heart that she is right.

"As some of you may know, my original speech was censored for having mentioned my religious beliefs in God and quoting a Bible verse," Bivens said as she addressed the audience at her high school graduation. "The school has no responsibility for what I say. Friends, it is a sad day when we allow others to dictate what we may or may not say concerning our beliefs.

"Our beliefs will be challenged throughout our lives, so I encourage you to stand strong in your faith, whatever it may be, whether you pray to Allah or Krishna, or Mary or Jesus, or you don't pray at all, do not abandon your faiths and beliefs for they make you who you are," Bivens said.