Junior Suspended For Talking To Mom

And The Decay of Moral Absolutes

Kevin Francois, 17, a junior at Spencer High School in Columbus, was eating lunch at school last Wednesday when his cell phone rang. It was his mother, who is serving in Iraq. He hadn't talked to her in a month. He went outside the building to get a better reception. A teacher saw him and told him to end the call. He says he told her he was talking to his mom in Iraq. She said he didn't say that until later. At any rate, he refused to hang up and got sent to the office and got suspended "for three days for cursing and for being defiant."

This incident has provoked national outcry, and the school has received hundreds of calls and e-mails complaining about the suspension. I don't get it. He wouldn't obey the teacher, and he cussed at her---even he doesn't seem to be denying that part of it. So what gives? Are all these complaints out of sympathy for the kid? I feel sorry for him, too. His dad died when he was five, and his mom's away at Iraq. But I don't care what was going on---it's never right to disobey the rules and be defiant and cuss at a teacher.

People who disagree with this suspension are saying, It was OK for him to disobey the teacher because he was talking to his mom in Iraq. Are they saying that it's OK to disobey your authority if you have a good reason for it? That you don't always have to obey the rules? That there are no absolutes? Maybe I'm carrying this too far. But that's what the logic of these people's emotional argument seems to be saying.

A 13-year-old girl in Florida, after some apparent controversy, had an abortion last week. Now I don't know any of the details of this case, and I'm sure it's very, very sad. But whether the murder was in the best interests of the girl or not---the abortion was still a murder! A living, breathing, heart-beating, innocent person was killed. There are many people, including President Bush, who believe that abortion is OK under some circumstances.

It's not always wrong to disobey teachers. It's not always wrong to kill babies. What's next? What else isn't always wrong? I don't like where this is heading...

Edmond the Hun