“The parents of a ninth grade South Carolina student who said she was accosted by a teacher for quietly walking to class instead of stopping and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance are suing the teacher, principal, school district and state education officials.

Marissa Barnwell said she was walking quietly to class and decided not to stop for the pledge or a moment of silence that followed. A teacher yelled at her, confronted her and pushed her against a wall.

Barnwell was then sent to the principal’s office, which she said was humiliating because she feared she was in trouble. The principal promised to look at the video of the encounter and sent her back to class, but Barnwell said he never let her know that the teacher was wrong and she was right.

“I was completely and utterly disrespected,” Barnwell, 15, said at a news conference Thursday, according to The State newspaper. “No one has apologized, no one has acknowledged my hurt. … The fact that the school is defending that kind of behavior is unimaginable.”

Barnwell’s parents are suing the River Bluff High School teacher, the principal, Lexington School District 1, and the South Carolina Education Department in federal court, saying they violated the girl’s civil rights and her First Amendment rights to both free speech or not to speak at all.

A state law passed more than 30 years ago requires public schools to play the Pledge of Allegiance at a specific time every day.

But that law also prohibits punishing anyone who refuses to recite the pledge as long as they are not disruptive or infringe on others.

“The thing that’s beautiful about America is we have freedoms,” said Tyler Bailey, the family’s lawyer. “Students in our schools should feel safe, they should not feel threatened for exercising their constitutional rights.” (Courtesy Newsmax.com)

I remember back in elementary school, every morning we began by singing “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” and then, reciting The Pledge of Allegiance. Even remembering that ritual today, I find comfort in it.

In the South, at least in the Mississippi County in which I live, the school day still begins with the recitation of the Pledge, which is led by a group of students, standing around a microphone in the Principal’s Office.

Unfortunately, that is no longer the case in many schools around our blessed land.

Good old-fashioned American Patriots are now considered by Woke Far Left Democrats to be “White Nationalists”

So, what is the cause of this 180 degree turn from where we were, as a mostly cohesive society, based on love of God and Country, which I remember so fondly from my childhood, to where we are now as a country divided and compromised, to a certain extent, of individuals, who believe in relative morality, situational ethics, and a malleable Constitution.

Learned individuals have been trying to discern exactly what has caused this societal and cultural decline, and in the process, they have blamed it on everything from poor schools to poverty to malnutrition.

Being a simple man, (Hey, that would make a great title for a rock song. Oh, wait. It was. Never mind.) I believe that because Americans have wanted, for at least 3 generations now, to give their children everything materialistically possible.

They have to a great extent, ignored teaching their children both how to discern between right and wrong and how to be grateful for living in the Greatest Country on the Face of the Earth. A country that provides them with endless opportunities and advantages…like college scholarships.

God’s Word tells us that we, as parents, should “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” – Proverbs 22:6 (ESV)

What these ungrateful parents and their teenager do not understand is the fact that the exceptionalism of America lies not in the Halls of Power but in the courage and spirit of the average American. A courage and spirit, which our history proves, has driven American citizens to build a nation which is indeed exceptional among all others.

A nation which they are free to leave anytime they wish, in order to find one in which they will not feel so “oppressed.”

Good luck with that.

Until He Comes.

KJ