A high school valedictorian in Kentucky praised the fight for stronger gun laws by school-shooting survivors in Florida, and applauded his classmates for participating in an anti-abortion march, saying students should "continue to utilize our voices." 
 
 The only problem was that Holy Cross High School valedictorian Christian Bales gave his commencement address through a bullhorn outside the graduation venue after officials with the local Catholic diocese ruled parts of his speech were too political and not in keeping with church teachings. 
 
 Christian Bales 
 
 Student Council President Katherine Frantz at the Catholic school in Covington Kentucky, was barred from giving her graduation speech at the ceremony as well. 
 
 A spokesman for the Diocese of Covington, Tim Fitzgerald, said, "When the proposed speeches were received, they were found to contain elements that were political and inconsistent with the teaching of the Catholic Church," Fitzgerald said in a statement. 
 
 He also said the student speakers missed a deadline for submitting their speeches for review. 
 
 Bales, 18, suggested that the diocese's decision may have stemmed from his and Frantz's being known as outspoken on social issues. 
 
 "The [student council] president is my best friend, and we have been two huge advocates for social reform in our community, which has likely put us on the radar for the diocese," Bales told ABC affiliate WCPO-TV in Cincinnati. 
 
 Bales is an openly gay student who said he plans to major in biology in the fall at the University of Louisville, where he has an academic scholarship. 
 
 Bales' mother, Gillian Marksberry, said the students were notified of the decision not to allow them to speak about 10 hours before Friday night's graduation at the Connor Convocation Center at Thomas More College in Crestview Hills, near Covington. 
 
 Marksberry said she found the decision "shocking" and felt "very, very emotional" that her son was barred from giving his address. 
 
 But Bales and Frantz would not be silenced. 
 
 Following the commencement ceremony, they gave their speeches outside the auditorium through a bullhorn, surrounded by fellow graduates and their families. 
 
 Marksberry said, "We don't want to be vindictive, we don't want to be vengeful. That's not what this is about. He's earned the right to have a voice." 
 
 Bales, reading his speech from his cellphone, said, "'The young people will win' is a mantra that I'm sure many of you have heard if you've been attentive to the media recently. It's a phrase adopted by the prolific [Marjory] Stoneman Douglas teenagers [from Parkland, Florida] who are advocating for an agenda -- our rights to feel secure as humans." 
 
 He told the assembled crowd that during his four years at Holy Cross, he learned to "utilize my voice to advocate for my beliefs as an ethical individual." 
 
 "Rather than allowing opposition to silence us, we must utilize it as empowerment. As long as we nurture our minds as youth, we'll be able to be equally impactful as we encounter the world," Bales said. 
 
 He also mentioned in his speech that during the past year, he and Frantz advocated for the removal of a statue honoring Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States, from the Kentucky State Capitol. He also applauded fellow students for participating in a March for Life in January. 
 
 Christian Bales 
 
 "'The young people will win' because we're finished being complacent," Bales said in his address. "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." 
 
 He went on to tell his classmates, "We are dynamic. We are intelligent. We have a voice, and we're capable of using it in all communities." 
 
 He ended by saying, "We must take what we've learned in this community and apply it to the world we are about to encounter. We are the young people, and we will continue to win." 

 COVINGTON, Ky. -- Holy Cross High School's graduating valedictorian and student council president learned hours before Friday night's graduation that they would not be allowed to deliver their planned -- and, they thought, pre-approved -- speeches at the ceremony. 
 
 They found a pair of megaphones and delivered them outside. 
 
 "The young people will win," valedictorian Christian Bales said, "because we're finished being complacent." 
 
 The 18-year-old Cold Spring resident had hoped to celebrate the rising tide of American youth advocacy across the political spectrum, mentioning both the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students who have campaigned for reformed gun laws and his own classmates who had attended the March for Life in January, and encourage his classmates to continue striving to make their communities better. 
 
 "We are dynamic, we are intelligent, we have a voice, and we're capable of using it in all communities," he said in his speech. "We must take what we've learned in this community and apply it to the world we are about to encounter." 
 
 Bales' mother, Gillian Marksberry, said Bales and student council president Katherine Frantz had believed their speeches were approved before an "out-of-the-blue" Friday morning call from Principal Mike Holtz to both their families. Holtz held an "emergency meeting" that ended in a declaration the diocese did not feel the two speeches were appropriate for the ceremony, Marksberry said. 
 
 Holtz related to her that the diocese characterized them as "aggressive, angry, confrontational" and too personal for the graduation stage. 
 
 "I can send you a copy of my speech," Bales wrote in a Twitter message. "It's anything but those things. … The irony is that my speech has a lot to do with voices, but our voices are being stifled." 
 
 He added he believed he and Frantz had been treated with undue scrutiny because of their advocacy for issues of social justice. Bales is openly gay and has participated in youth activism surrounding issues such as the Jefferson Davis statue in the Kentucky Capitol building. 
 
 "The president is my best friend and we've been two huge advocates for social reform in our community, which has likely put us on the radar for the diocese," he said. 
 
 Marksberry described her family's experience -- as anxiety-inducing and hectic as that of any family preparing for a graduation, plus the Friday morning bombshell -- as "shocking" and "very, very emotional." Her daughter had attended and graduated from Holy Cross years earlier without incident, she said, and their family was a longtime part of the diocese. During all that time, the principal had never called her personally to discuss her children until the week of Bales' graduation. 
 
 The first call, she said, was about the dress code. Bales describes himself as "very gender-nonconforming," so Holtz reminded Marksberry that diocesan officials would expect him to wear slacks, formal shoes, a conservative hairstyle and no makeup. 
 
 That was uncomfortable -- "You've never called me about my child, but you're calling someone else who doesn't know my child about my child?" she said -- but Marksberry understood. 
 
 The next call, which she didn't, was about Bales' speech. Initially, she said school and diocese officials claimed to be rejecting the two speeches because Frantz and Bales had failed to meet a deadline. When she told them the students had never been given a formal deadline, the speeches' content rose to the top of the concern list. 
 
 "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," diocese spokesman Tim Fitzgerald said Friday night. "When the proposed speeches were received, they were found to contain elements that were political and inconsistent with the teaching of the Catholic Church." 
 
 He repeated that the students had failed to meet a deadline to turn their speeches in to faculty. Holy Cross principal Mike Holtz and district superintendent Michael Clines did not respond to requests for comment. 
 
 Bales and Frantz delivered their speeches outside, through megaphones, after the ceremony. Marksberry said the general staff of Holy Cross High School had been supportive of her son and found ways to "help him embrace himself," and she did not bear the district any ill will. 
 
 "We don't want to be vindictive, we don't want to be vengeful," she said. "That's not what this is about. He's earned the right to have a voice." 
 
 Bishop Roger Foys, who oversees the Diocese of Covington and who typically distributes awards at Catholic schools' graduations, did not attend the ceremony. His seat stood empty on the graduation stage. 
 
 Bales will attend the University of Louisville on a full-ride scholarship in the fall. He plans to major in biology and become a conservationist. 
 
 You can read his speech in a Google Doc here. 

 Christian Bales, the valedictorian of Holy Cross High School in Crestview Hills, Kentucky, was barred from delivering his graduation speech on Friday. Instead, he delivered it after the graduation ceremony, outside of the school on a megaphone. 
 
 After reading a copy of Bales' speech, the school determined it was "political and inconsistent with the teachings of the Catholic church." Bales said he found out the day of graduation that the Diocese of Covington cut his speech from the ceremony. 
 
 "The diocese took ours and said they were too confrontational, too angry, too personal, and that they weren't appropriate for the setting," Bales said, after both he and his friend's speeches were cut. 
 
 Bales repeated the phrase "the young people will win" in his speech, a phrase coined by Parkland, Florida, students who survived a mass shooting earlier this year. 
 
 In a statement, a diocese spokesperson said: 
 
 "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. The student speeches for the Holy Cross High School graduation were not submitted for review before the deadline. They were found to contain elements that were political and inconsistent with the teachings of the Catholic church." 
 
 "I know they pointed out that the Parkland teens teach ideologies that apparently go against the Catholic faith, which I don't agree with in my experience," Bales said, according to WKRC. 
 
 WKRC 
 
 Bales' mother, Gillian Marksberry, believes there was another reason the school did not want her son to speak. 
 
 Marksberry said she received a call from the school's principal last week. She said he wanted her help to ensure Bales wore men's clothing to graduation and did not wear makeup or bobby pins in his hair. 
 
 "That was disturbing because in four years, I had never received a phone call from the principal," Marksberry said. "No one ever reached out to me to help learn about my child." 
 
 Bales is openly gay. He says to date, the school had been supportive. 
 
 This incident won't silence him, he says. "I think I'm going to keep fighting for what I believe in," Bales said. "I'm going to keep using my megaphone and intensifying my voice." 
 
 Bales' mother planned to send his 9-year-old sister to Holy Cross in the future, but said after Friday night, that is not happening.
– When you're banned from giving a high-school graduation speech, what do you do? Give it anyway. On the lawn. With a bullhorn. That's what 18-year-old Christian Bales did Friday after Holy Cross High School in Covington, Kentucky, told him earlier that day he would not be allowed to speak at graduation, ABC News reports. "When the proposed speeches were received, they were found to contain elements that were political and inconsistent with the teaching of the Catholic Church," says a spokesman for the Diocese of Covington. So Bales stood outside the graduation venue and spoke about gun laws (wants stronger ones), abortion (applauds students who joined a pro-life march), and removing a Jefferson Davis statue (advocated for removal). "'The young people will win' is a mantra that I'm sure many of you have heard if you've been attentive to the media recently," he said. "It's a phrase adopted by the prolific [Marjory] Stoneman Douglas teenagers [from Parkland, Florida] who are advocating for an agenda—our rights to feel secure as humans." His friend, Student Council President Katherine Frantz, was also banned and gave her speech on the lawn. Bales' mother described the school's last-minute action as "out-of-the-blue" and said Principal Mike Holtz told her the students' words were "aggressive, angry, confrontational," and overly personal, WCPO reports. She also said Holtz wanted her to confirm that Bales, who is openly gay, would wear men's clothing without bobby pins or makeup if he attended graduation, CBS News reports.