TRENTON, N.J., June 15 (UPI) -- A federal judge must decide whether officials at a New Jersey school went too far when they banned an 8-year-old girl from singing a hymn in a talent show.
The girl wanted to perform "Awesome God."
Officials in Frenchtown, a blue-collar town on the Delaware River 30 miles northwest of Trenton, told the Christian Science Monitor the problem was not that the song is religious. But they found some lyrics -- like "His return is very close and so you better be believing that our God is an awesome God" -- too graphic and evangelizing for an elementary school audience.
"This is tolerance and political correctness gone awry," Maryann Turton, the girl's mother, said. "This is a much bigger picture than just our daughter in our little town. It is going on everywhere."
The girl's legal supporters include the Alliance Defense Fund, a religious rights group in Arizona, the civil rights division of the U.S. Justice Department and the American Civil Liberties Union.
A federal judge in Trenton is scheduled to hear the case July 3.
