Index

6.5.06

The Unacceptable Speech

World Net Daily

Imagine what one might have to say in a commencement speech in 2006 that would require an apology.

Imagine what one might have to say in a university graduation address that would cause walkouts and booing.

Imagine what one might have to say to shock graduates into fits of crying. Well, you don't have to imagine any more.

It happened last month at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn.

What happened? I mean, what could possibly happen on a college campus today that would evoke such reaction? What kinds of speech have university students not already been exposed to in the course of their academic careers?

Get ready, if you haven't heard.

Ben Kessler, an honors graduate and an all-American football player who plans to become a priest, was forced to apologize for his speech because he criticized his fellow students for being selfish and morally unaccountable.

Kessler blasted graduates for promiscuous sex. He blasted the university's policy of allowing unmarried faculty and staff to shack up together during school trips. He blasted students for participating in a recent food fight.

In other words, agree with Kessler on specifics or not, the distinguished senior given the 2006 Tommie Award in a vote by students, staff and faculty talked about … morality. He was met with catcalls, obscenities, profanities and vulgarities. And Kessler was the one to apologize.

The Rev. Dennis Dease, the president of St. Thomas, said he told Kessler that his remarks were "not appropriate" for the commencement exercise. Maybe. Maybe not. But judging from the hostile reaction from his classmates, one could easily deduce that perhaps these students should have been exposed to such ideas earlier in their schooling.

Kessler wasn't insulting anyone. He wasn't demeaning. He wasn't misusing his platform to score cheap political points like so many of today's commencement speakers. He was simply reminding his friends and peers that we live in a world of right and wrong – of moral absolutes.

You can debate right and wrong, but you cannot deny they exist.

Though I haven't been able to find a complete transcript of Kessler's speech, I have seen video excerpts. What shocked me was not the content of Kessler's words but those of the vicious epithets hurled at him by graduates whose consciences might have been pricked by what he said.

We don't know much about right and wrong in America any more. We don't know much about morality or from where it originates. We don't know much about the Bible. But nearly everyone reading this column today is probably familiar with at least one verse. You may even be shouting it at me right now. You may have thought about it when you first read about Kessler or heard about his terribly offensive speech.

That one popular Bible verse is "Judge not, that ye be not judged." You'll find it in Matthew 7:1. It's a popular verse because fools believe it suggests Jesus didn't want nor require us to discern right from wrong – good behavior from bad behavior. But that meaning can only be taken by reading the verse out of context from the rest of the passage and the rest of the Bible. In that same passage Jesus instructs us on how to judge good people from evil people.

In fact, He commands us to do just that.

Personally, I don't think Kessler is the one who should be apologizing. I think the president of that phony Catholic university ought to be apologizing. I think the students who heckled and cursed Kessler should apologize. I think the American academic elite – both secular and religious apparently – who teach students to tolerate evil and reject everything that is righteous and holy should apologize. Ben Kessler is going to be a blessing to many people throughout his life. He's going to perform good works with the best of motivations. He's going to serve God to the best of his ability.

The fact that he is the one who is publicly apologizing in the spring of 2006 should be a warning to us all that we live in perilous times.