Letter: Foothill valedictorian has right to be heard

Sunday, July 2, 2006 | 7:42 a.m.

It seems like a lot of people are confused about the freedom of religion that the Constitution provides in the aftermath of the Foothill High School graduation ceremony and Brittany McComb's valedictory speech.

When our Founding Fathers created our Constitution, they saw what had happened with the Church of England and saw how it affected the people's religious freedoms and provided language that would prevent the same thing from happening in this country. The First Amendment states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech ..."

Now I guess the part I have a problem understanding is how a young girl giving a speech about her relationship with God, and how it affected her school career, equates to Congress making a law establishing a state church or religion. Well the correct answer is that it doesn't. No state church has sprung up since she gave her speech and one wouldn't have been created even if her microphone hadn't been cut off.

The part of the Constitution that most of the secular media and the ACLU refuse to address is the part that says Congress shall not "... prohibit the free exercise thereof ..."

If the argument, concerning the Establishment Clause, is used to disallow the speech, then the same logic can be used to allow the speech by invoking the freedom of religion clause.

If it is Ms. McComb's belief that part of exercising her religion is sharing her very relevant experience with God, and how it got her though school, then she should have freedom to do so.

But personally I think people being afraid of a smart young woman to give a speech that happens to mention God and the Bible is ridiculous.

You hear a lot of people saying Christians need to be more tolerant of opposing viewpoints yet hypocritically are not at all tolerant of Christians' perspectives.

Tony Tharp, Las Vegas