The Hannity & Colmes show last night had a high school senior as a guest.

She was one of the speakers at her graduation and the topic she chose was the people who shaped her life, who helped her to become the person she is.

In one of her paragraphs, she chose to mention Jesus Christ and how He shaped her life, how He is her best friend, etc...When she presented her speech for approval, she was told she 'had' to remove that paragraph as it could offend people.

Yesterday and today, two of the major newspapers in New York have 23-page spreads on John Gotti, the mobster who died. They actually have pages and pages of 'tributes' to this man and many are upset with the catholic church for not giving this man a 'proper' burial.

Jesus is denied, the ACLU is determined to remove God from our country, a Christian girl cannot mentioned the name Jesus in her commencement speech and a mobster whose livelihood was murder, drugs, prostitution, gambling, pornography gets applause. Something is definitely wrong with this picture.

MaryLu

-- MaryLu (mlc327@juno.com), June 14, 2002

Answers

OOps...excuse - should say mention, not mentioned...ML

-- MaryLu (mlc327@juno.com), June 14, 2002.

Two things to remember, though, Mary Lu: first, the Church has always been at its best under persecution. And second, at least the Church had the guts to say "no" to giving John Gotti a Catholic funeral. That's got to be a good sign!

Love, :-)

-- Christine Lehman (christinelehman@hotmail.com), June 14, 2002.

Does anyone know if Gotti received the last sacraments? It wouldn't be likely, if the Church wouldn't arrange Christian burial.

-- eugene c. chavez (chavezec@pacbell.net), June 14, 2002.

MaryLu--
Don't let it bother you that a commencement speech would be felt inappropriate for the declaration of this girl's love for Jesus. In a perfect world, it might be the natural thing to do. We don't have a world like that. What's more, the speech would have met with the indifference of many. She is always free to make her personal act of faith directly to God. It's much more meaningful. And, to tell others of your love for God you don't need a platform. You can do it every day as long as you live, to every soul you meet. And I hope that's the impulse the girl will receive from this bitter experience. Her determination to speak as long as God gives her the grace and the strength.

-- eugene c. chavez (chavezec@pacbell.net), June 14, 2002.

MaryLu

If it was her intention to give God credit and they blocked her, the message was heard by GOD anyway and it is no skin off her back for she tried and that is what counts. The blame is now on the others who betrayed her. The ALCU and the rest.

Blessings.

-- Fred Bishop (FCB@heartland.com), June 14, 2002.

By the way, Mary Lu, you may want to check with your ISP service provider (juno) - I just got a message in my mailbox stating that it had tried to send you a copy of the message I posted above, & got this message:

Remote host said: 550 mlc327@juno.com is not a valid user Giving up on 64.136.20.83.

Service outage maybe?

Love, :-)

-- Christine Lehman (christinelehman@hotmail.com), June 14, 2002.

Dear Christine,

We have gone through this before...it is not my real e-mail address.

Maybe I should start using my real e-mail address here, but I have had some very bad experiences using my real e-mail addresses on forums and someone sent me a virus, destroyed my hard-drive, my husband wanted to 'destroy me' for getting involved with forums. From that time I, I leave a couple of letters out of of my real e-mail address.

I may be dismissed from the forum now for admitting that, but if I am so be it. I will have to use my real one. I just think it is a dangerous practice from what I have experienced.

MaryLu

-- MaryLu (mlc327@juno.com), June 14, 2002.

Isn't that kind of unfair to the rest of us who *do* use our real e- mail addresses, so we won't violate the stated rule of the forum:

"Please don't use a fake email address; it creates a lot of technical problems for the community. For example, this software will send you an email alert if someone responds to your message and those alerts will bounce back to us if the address you type isn't valid."

?

-- Christine Lehman (christinelehman@hotmail.com), June 14, 2002.

There is a middle ground. I use "MattElFeo@netscape.net" which is not my principal email address. Free email accounts are easy to find (see netscape, hotmail, etc).

Try not to give out your primary email unless you are comfortable doing so.

My $0.02,

Mateo

-- (MattElFeo@netscape.net), June 14, 2002.

Christine

It is because of harrassing E-Mails that I and My wife do not any longer give out our Email addy. It is preferred this way for that reason. We had to change ours and many others here have done the same. I do prefer the name of the people though so I can actually see them in name only.

-- Fred Bishop (FCB@heartland.com), June 14, 2002.

Okay, didn't mean to make an issue out of it. Just thought fake e- mails were prohibited. Maybe the moderators could rewrite the warning that appears whenever I submit a response?

Love, :-)

-- Christine Lehman (christinelehman@hotmail.com), June 14, 2002.

I don't wish to communicate with anyone, except on the forum, for the reasons I mentioned, and for the same reasons that Fred has mentioned.

It is very costly to buy a new computer, and very difficult to get it fixed once your hard-drive is destroyed as was in my case. This is the world-wide web and these are very crazy times we are living in. You never really know who you are communicating with.

I would love to converse with the people I became friends with on this forum, even though we disagree many times, basically we all get along, they are nice people - unforunately, in this day and age I open e-mails 'only' from family members and close friends. If I do not recognize the address, I do not open it. Unforunately, that is the way it is going to be for me. Some forums have it set up where you must use your real e-mail address to enter the forum, but it is not available to others.

Some people are here post very interesting messages and I would love to communicate further with them, but I am not going to subject myself to problems. Sorry if I am being unfair, but I refuse to take any chances.

I do use my real name. MaryLu :)

-- MaryLu (mlc327@juno.com), June 14, 2002.

MaryLu

That is being a smart cookie. You are on the ball and Sorry to hear you had to lose your PC that way. Ours has been acting up some what in the past months and we are waiting for it to crash someday. I have to reboot it several times a day because of internal errors have crept into it.

Blessings.

-- Fred Bishop (FCB@heartland.com), June 14, 2002.

MaryLu, I apologize for being so snotty about this!

Love, :-)

-- Christine Lehman (christinelehman@hotmail.com), June 14, 2002.

To bring us back on the topic:

If I was that girl, I would have simply declined giving the speech. The fact that it was an honor to speak, yet I didn't, would be a testimony to the gravity of their mistake. If they permitted her to give a speech on who shaped her life, then they should listen to EVERYONE who shaped it. It was an outward sign that they really weren’t interested in hearing who shaped her life. They were only interested in filling a time slot. And if they didn't want to hear my story completely, then screw them (sorry for the harsh words - it just steams me that these people are so idiotic in their ignorance! ERRRRRRRRR). Heck, it could be downright offensive if her parents shaped her life, right? Do you think they would have denied her draft if she would have said that Charles Manson or Hitler shaped her life? Probably NOT. I'll bet you that at least 80 percent of those people would NOT have been offended by Jesus, whereas 100% WOULD have been offended to hear that Jeffery Domer shaped her life. But do you think they would have had her delete that?

Father forgive them, for they no NOT what they do. Amen.

In Christ.

-- Jake Huether (jake.huether@lamrc.com), June 14, 2002.

I forgive you, Chris :) I am glad you understand.

Jake, I am with you. I would not have given the speech. She is now suing the college. I don't like when these things turn into lawsuits, because then it becomes about money - unless they use that money for a charitable cause or something. These lawsuits turn me off. They say it is not about money, but the principal, etc., etc...yet it does become about money.

Lawyers always have to get in on the act. Sometimes I wonder if they work for Satan - no offense to any lawyers on here... MaryLu

-- MaryLu (mlc327@juno.com), June 14, 2002.

MaryLu

On the lawyers, yes you are so right on the money. They only care about the money, Period. They are the most selfish and drunkard fools. I have known a few and never liked their priorities.

-- Fred Bishop (FCB@heartland.com), June 14, 2002.

We should probably stay away from categorizing people. I'm sure there are some good Lawyers out there. But the profession does require a certain callousness to truth (a.k.a. dishonesty). I mean, wining is your livelihood; you don't get paid to be a looser.

On a lighter note...

What do you call 4 Lawyers buried up to their heads in sand?

Not enough sand!

In Christ.

-- Jake Huether (jake.huether@lamrc.com), June 14, 2002.

Hello, Christine L.

That request against the use a fake email address ("creates a lot of technical problems for the community") is not from this forum's Moderator, but rather from the "owner" of the site, who allows us to use/create these "pages."

Actually, technical problems are not caused by using a fake email address when you reply on an existing thread. Slight problems are caused when you use a fake e-mail address in starting a new thread on the Post a New Message page -- but only if you answer "yes" to the question, "Notify Me of Responses (via email)?" If you answer "yes," then the software "robot" will try to send, to the fake address, copies of people's responses. Such attempts will be kicked back to the responder. (It happens to me all the time.) I ALWAYS answer "no" to the question, "Notify Me of Responses?" I want to read all responses here, rather than from my e-mail InBox.

Christine, please read the rules created by the Moderator of this site (rules that include permission for a person to post anonymously [as the Moderator does], even with a fictitious e-mail address). The rules are here.

God bless you.
John

-- J. F. Gecik (jfgecik@hotmail.com), June 14, 2002.

I shouldn't categorize 'all' lawyers, that is really not fair.

But, today, it seems that people are filing lawsuits for absoultely everything. If you're having a bad day and look at someone the wrong way they may sue you for hurting their feelings...it has really gotten out of hand.

I know it is their job, but I have a problem with American lawyers who want to defend possible terrorists who want to destroy this country and kill us. I would have to quit the profession before I could ever do that or defend murders, rapists, 'knowing' that they are guilty.

-- MaryLu (mlc327@juno.com), June 14, 2002.

Mary Lu,

Was this show live or previously taped?

If it was live, I would have said my speech anyway.

I would love to know how these people in T.V world determine what is offense to some and what is not. Apparently violence like a woman being raped or beat isn't offensive. Apparently young woman being used as sexual objects isn't offensive. And I guess the blood shed in movies don't qualify as offensive, nor the foul language or the taping of "Spring Break" where just about anything goes.

GIMMEE A BREAK!!!!!!!!

It's all about the $$$$$ and ratings it seems.

-- Kathy (sorry@nomail.com), June 14, 2002.

Hi Again Kathy,

The show is called "The View." It is on at 11:00 in the am, ABC.

The show was being taped for viewing when Joy Baher said, "Thank you Jesus" regarding her weight loss and not having to diet any more. They were having a contest about dieting.

When the show was aired, ABC, deleted the word Jesus saying that it would be offensive to people. After they received a lot of complaints, ABC responded by saying that Joy did not use the name Jesus in a respectful manner and people would find it offensive. Notice I said, after ABC received lots of complaints.

You are right, we are subjected to so much garbage on TV and offensive material...but the name Jesus seems to be more offensive than some of the language we hear. It shows the moral climate of our society today and it scares me.

MaryLu

-- MaryLu (mlc327@juno.com), June 14, 2002.

Marylu, or anyone else that can help

Do you know if Sean Hannity follows the teachings of the Catholic Church? Or is he a Catholic like Bill O Reily?

Thanks in advance

David

-- David (David@excite.com), August 25, 2002.