hey, juneau about this case? it's (olympic) torch-ure.
Bongs! Jesus! High school students! Juneau, Alaska! The Christian Right! Bush! The First Amendment! The Christian Right supporting bongs? Bongs! Bush! Jesus! Jesus... what am I talking about?

Well, our story takes place in a small, chilly town in Alaska. Juneau of it? Well, besides from providing a plethora of punning opportunities, Jeanau, Alaska was home to the Olympic torch five years ago, and with that came a host of TV cameras, reporters and people in general (desperate for some heat via the torch? ha). Among this hoard observing the torch festivies was a young fellow, high school senior Joseph Frederick. We'll call him Joe, because hey, I'm a senior too. If I lived in Alaska, and this were five years ago, Joe could have been my friend. (Fine, acquaintance.)

Joe is bored, and wants a slice of his fifteen minutes of fame. Along with the onslaught of typical senioritis, his Alaskan strain of senioritis is pretty serious, what with the whaling being sub-par that year and all. (Ha, just kidding, aleutia_selkie.) But that's not the point. The point is that during this little shindig, when the TV cameras panned to Joe and his gang, they unfurled a 14-foot poster that read, in big, badass letters, "Bong Hits 4 Jesus."


photo credit: Clay Good via cannablog.wordpress.com

Jesus, Joe. Why pick on Him? Why not Bong Hits 4 Buddah! Bong Hits 4 Unicorns! Bong Hits 4 Leprechauns! (A pot of gold, perhaps?) Why Jesus, Joe, why bring in religion? But, Joe decided to test his free speech with this message, to which his principal didn't exactly dig. She told him to put it away, and Joe, ever the teenage rebel, refused, prompting Principal to tear it up and suspend our buddy Joe for ten days.

Enter the Supreme Court and the entire nation. (Why, hello! Fancy seeing you here!) Joe's case has spiraled not only into a Tinker-esque Freedom of Speech case, but an intense How Much Religion Does the School Get to Control debate, in which groups such as--get this!--the Christian Legal Society have supported Joe. I guess even the Christian Right likes their right to get high with Him now and again.

No, I'm only kidding. It's actually more like this: if this type of speech is banned, then religious speech may be in peril too, or at least that's what organizations like the Christian Legal Society are thinking. And, of course, the good ol' American Civil Liberties Union is there ready to add that this case did not happen at a school event and therefore Joe can say anything he wants.

So how much free speech should we crazy, blabbering, pot-smoking, Jesus-jabbing high school students be entitled to, anyway? I say that one, some of us are as old as 18, and should be entitled to say what we feel. Secondly, "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" does not advocate any type of drug use, anyway. It's funny, it's controversial, but it doesn't make me want to dash to the nearest source of some cannabis I can hunt down. But one lawyer for the case, Kenneth Starr, maintains that having the word "Bong Hits" is distracting from the school environment and advocating for drug use, which the school, according to Mr. Starr, has the right to censor (you must be my "Unlucky Starr"). From the Slate article: "Whereas, he suggests—again without a whiff of irony—that students should be able to offer no dissenting opinions here because drugs, alcohol, and tobacco are bad."

So, long story short, these educators and lawyers are ona war-path to start suppressing student speech that doesn't jive so well with what they want to hear. Bong Hits 4 Jesus this time, yes. But as an editor at a high school newspaper, and someone who is performing "My Angry Vagina" from The Vagina Monologues in two days, I'm less worried about the bong and more worried about the hits that other high-school students pushing our free speech might take depending on this case's verdict.