A high school senior in Jacksonville, Fla., is getting praise and grief for giving the Gospel in her valedictory address.
Shannon Spaulding, who topped her class of 383 students at Wolfson High School, spoke to about 6,000 people at her commencement ceremony late last month. For nearly 20 minutes, she quoted the Bible and shared about Jesus.
“I want to tell you that Jesus Christ can give you eternal life in Heaven,” she said in her valedictory -- to applause.
“There was a lot of support," she later told Family News in Focus. "I was actually kind of surprised. I didn’t expect that.”
Usually high school seniors don’t have the chance to include God in graduation speeches, because their prayers and speeches are wrongly censored by school officials who fear lawsuits. And the school board over Wolfson High School did issue an apology for Spaulding’s speech.
Rob Boston, a spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said he thinks it was necessary.
“That sort of thing is great for Sunday morning pulpit from the minister," he argued, "but it’s really not appropriate at a public event where there are people of many different faiths who have come for graduation.”
But the U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that if students are given an opportunity to make a speech at a graduation event based on grades or because they were selected by fellow students, they are free to make religious references.
Spaulding's mother, Tracy, said she could not be any prouder of her daughter’s courage.
“It makes me feel like she’s somebody who can think for herself," she said, "and that she has enough compassion for other people and respect for them that she can believe that they can think for themselves."
