The same Catholic Diocese that oversees Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky, home to the students that harassed Native American Nathan Phillips over the weekend, also banned openly gay valedictorian Christian Bales’ speech at the High School of the Holy Cross last May, according to the New York Times.
The Diocese who issued an apology to Mr. Phillips said of Bales back in May that, “School officials and representatives of the Diocese of Covington reserve the right to review and approve all student speeches to be presented in public at high school graduations.”
“I have been on their radar as a rather non-gender conforming individual,” Bale told the Cincinnati Inquirer. “I have worn makeup and bobby pins in my hair to school before. So it seems too much of a coincidence for my critical thinking to think this was just about the speech itself. But I wasn’t going to go up there and give my speech in full drag.”
Bales made headlines for reading his speech via a bullhorn his father bought him after his speech was banned. Mr. Bales delivered his speech after the official graduation ceremony.
Bales’ speech concluded with a call-to-action to his fellow classmates, “We must take what we’ve learned in this community and apply it to the world we are about to encounter.”
USA Today reported that “Bales’ speech did not refer to his sexuality but instead referenced the ongoing gun-control protests by the students of Parkland High School in Florida, the scene of a school shooting earlier this year.”
Watch Bales deliver his speech below.
