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Most high school valedictorians deliver their graduation speeches in overcrowded gymnasiums to slightly sleepy crowds, but for one Kentucky senior things played out very differently.

Christian Bales, the valedictorian at Holy Cross High School in Covington, Kentucky, was recently banned from delivering his speech at the graduation ceremony. So he instead chose to deliver it from outside the building with a bullhorn -- with his entire class watching on.

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Members of Bales' local Catholic diocese ruled that Bales' speech was too political and inconsistent with church teachings. But Bales, who is openly gay, was undaunted and forged ahead with the speech, which touched on the power of young people being activists. He applauded his fellow students -- all across the political spectrum -- for participating in a recent March for Life and for advocating for gun control.

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From Bales' speech, which you can read here in a Google Doc:

"'The young people willwin' because we’re finished being complacent. There’s a misguided notion that wisdom is directly proportional to age, but we’re disproving that daily. Sometimes the wisest are the youngest in our lives, the ones who haven’t yet been desensitized to the atrocities of our world. Therefore, we young people must be the educators."

As a practicing Catholic, I’m incredibly disappointed with @DIOofCOV in how this situation was handled. Please take the time to read Christian Bales’s inspiring words. It is so important for our amazing young people to keep using their voice! Also proud of @frantzkatherine!! 🎓 https://t.co/bWUUPaLk4u

— C.J. Fryer (@cjfryer) May 26, 2018

Student Council president Katherine Frantz was also banned from making a speech. The diocese says the two missed a deadline for submitting the speech for approval, but the students say they were never aware of any deadline and were told it was the content of their speeches that the school took issue with.

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Though in the end their message was heard loud and clear. If only all high school valedictorians and their corny speeches were this cool.

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TopicsActivism