Catholic School Rejected Its Gay Valedictorian's Speech. So He Gave It With a Bullhorn.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Catholic School Rejected Its Gay Valedictorian’s Speech. So He Gave It With a Bullhorn.

By Christina Caron
May 28, 2018

This wasn’t the way Christian Bales planned to leave high school. ... Mr. Bales, an 18-year-old with a passion for conservation science, worked hard at Holy Cross, a Catholic school in Covington, Ky., earning the honor of valedictorian. He looked forward to delivering a commencement speech at the graduation on Friday.

Then something happened that left him “kind of shocked,” he said. ... The principal and other officials told him on Friday that the Diocese of Covington had deemed his speech too angry and confrontational, Mr. Bales said.

“I did not think the speech was polarizing at all,” he said. He was told that it was political and personal and that there was no time to revise it.

Mr. Bales is gay and describes himself as gender nonconforming. His speech, which can be read in full here, makes no mention of either.

Equal opportunity for the salutatorian:

Op-Ed: My Speech Was Also Cut from Holy Cross Graduation

SUN 05/27/2018 19:47 RCN NEWSDESK

On Friday, May 25, two students at Holy Cross High School in Covington were not permitted to deliver their commencement speeches after the Diocese of Covington objected to their content and suggested that the speeches were also turned in for review late. Class valedictorian Christian Bales and salutatorian and student council president Katherine Frantz delivered their speeches after the ceremony, outside the Connor Convocation Center at Thomas More College in Crestview Hills. To read the original story, click here. Since then, Katherine Frantz wrote this op-ed and submitted it to RCN for publication, along with the entirety of her speech.

[smirkymonkey]

1. K&R

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. Gay valedictorian banned from speaking at Covington graduation 'not surprised' by D.C. controversy

Hat tip, Dinesh D'Souza:

Okay it’s time to try a different angle. These scumbags can’t just apologize for trying to ruin these kids’ lives and leave it at that

Link to tweet

A gay student who was barred by the Covington diocese from speaking at his 2018 graduation, is "not surprised" by the Covington Catholic High School video. - @NBCOUT

Link to tweet

Gay valedictorian banned from speaking at Covington graduation 'not surprised' by D.C. controversy

A gay student who was barred by the Covington diocese from speaking at his 2018 graduation, is "not surprised" by the Covington Catholic High School video.

Jan. 22, 2019, 6:19 PM EST
By Ben Kesslen

Video of white students from Covington Catholic High School confronting a Native American elder at the Indigenous Peoples March in Washington, D.C., last Friday went viral this past week. However, this is not the first time a school overseen by the Diocese of Covington in Kentucky has come under national media scrutiny. ... In May of last year, the Catholic diocese ruled just hours before Holy Cross High School's graduation that the openly gay valedictorian and the student council president could not give their planned speeches at the Covington school's official graduation ceremony.

Determined to make their voices heard, the valedictorian, Christian Bales, and the student council president decided to give their speeches anyway. After the official ceremony, the pair grabbed a megaphone and spoke to a crowd of students and families on the school’s lawn. Bales' speech, which was posted to social media, quickly went viral.

Bales said at the time that he was unsure whether his sexual orientation played a role in the Diocese of Covington's decision to not permit him to speak at graduation. "I honestly have no idea, because what I've been taught about the Catholic faith is that it's about love and tolerance and acceptance of all people," he said.

Bales, now 19 and a freshman at the University of Louisville, spoke to NBC News on Tuesday about last year's incident and the recent viral video that has dragged Covington back into the national spotlight. ... “I was not surprised at all,” Bales plainly told NBC News when asked for his reaction to last week's D.C. confrontation. “It was only a matter of time that something this school community did would blow up to this degree, and I think they need to be held accountable.” ... Bales claims Covington Catholic is "notorious for being a not-well-disciplined school," and he described the Diocese of Covington as "archaic."
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