Meanwhile in front page news, at least in Texas and the Bible Belt, the week ended with an exciting reversal of Chief U.S. District Judge Judge Fred Biery of San Antonio's ruling issued earlier this week forbidding a high school Valedictorian (name withheld because of age) from going forward with publicly disclosed plans to yesterday perform a gospel rendition of the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil" in a commencement address and inviting the graduation ceremony audience at a rural San Antonio area high school to join along. The Judge did say that the Valedictorian was permitted to sing or hum the song to themselves. However the student who brought the suit would not have to sing or even hum along.
The Judge's ruling aroused the ire of thousands of Texans who felt that "Sympathy for the Devil" was a great song and would probably be better than a lot of fairly forgettable boring Valedictorian speeches. Many hitherto unknown groups with strange acronyms surfaced to express outrage that the Rolling Stones' classic which some feel has no religious connotations should be denied an eager audience. Judge Biery allegedly got more than 500 threatening telephone calls from people all over the country who love the Stones' song and apparently because they either cannot write letters or e-mails or somehow believed the Court would be able to handle that many telephone calls in a matter of days without their calls being shunted to voicemail.
One of the most prevalent threats against the Judge leaked by Court insiders was that the callers would "kick his ass" or commit some other depraved violent act against the Judge at some unspecified opportunity. Apparently the callers did not realize that their telephone numbers which would provide strong initial evidence of who they were are readily available to the Federal Government which has very little problem tracing the origin and performing voice recognition of threatening phone calls against Federal government officials in violation of Federal laws often punishable by bankrupting fines and lengthy prison terms.
The Attorney General of Texas Greg Abbott joined in the mass hysteria upon reviewing Chief Judge Biery's opinion that "Sympathy for the Devil" could not be performed in a sing-along at the San Antonio are high school commencement celebration. The Attorney General made the incisive declaration that "It should not be illegal for students to sing 'Sympathy for the Devil' at graduation.
Governor Rick ("six-shooter") Perry joined the Judge-bashing and even reportedly took a break from "dictating" his latest book to a ghost writer on how he would never run for United States President with Sarah Palin as Vice-President in the 2012 Presidential election. Texas Governor ("six-shooter") Perry then from a teleprompter helped by an aide whispering in his ear since he does not read very well actually was heard to utter the longest word he has ever been believed to have spoken since becoming Texas Governor a few decades ago. He apparently was heard to call Chief Judge Biery's order "reprehensible" although it was unclear if he actually knew the meaning of the word.
Also joining the decorum was a Federal elected official also taking the courageous political position of bashing the Federal Chief District Judge, that was U.S. Senator John Cornyn who "blasted" the Judge's order and said it was hostile to "all things religious or occult in public life". Neither the esteemed Senator nor the armed Governor Perry is ever known to have made any type of legal analysis demonstrating even a passing familiarity with the United States Constitution including some especially well-known parts intended by the Founding Fathers to keep Church and State separated and forbidding the Government from supporting "Establishments of Religion", including those which have lyrics about sympathy for the devil. Neither man is known ever to have been considered for a Federal judgeship.
The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in the final hours of last workweek negated Chief Judge Biery's order and, perhaps intimidated by the flood of calls threatening to "kick the ass" of or do similar things to the lower court judge was afraid their weekend might be disturbed by the same sort of phone calls. Perhaps the final straw was the pledge of the hitherto unknown group "A GAP IN BRAINS" which apparently materialized in Wichita Falls to announce that it would make buses available to transport transients to the San Antonio rural area high school for a "piece of disagreement" with Chief Judge Biery's order.
The Appeals Court officially however merely explained that it would allow the "Sympathy for the Devil" sing-along to take place because prohibiting it was probably a "loser argument" since the High School had been expressly told in advance by the Valedictorian that they would lead the "Sympathy for the Devil" sing-along. In reasoning worthy of today's U.S. Supreme Court in one of its completely incomprehensible opinions, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that therefore by allowing the "Sympathy for the Devil" sing-along to be led in a graduation ceremony by the Valedictorian when the school could have in fact simply forbid it, did not mean that it would be "school-sponsored". The plaintiff student who did not want to sing the song said he would not attend graduation.
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