Editorial: Faith in the system

Wednesday, July 12, 2006 | 7:19 a.m.

A Foothill High School valedictorian landed in the middle of the ongoing battle about where to draw the line between free speech and religious proselytizing in public schools.

According to a recent story by the Las Vegas Sun, school officials shut down Brittany McComb's graduation speech June 15 when McComb, in explaining how her faith had aided in her successes, slipped into territory school officials had told her to avoid.

McComb's speech, like those of other valedictorians, was vetted by school officials to make sure it was appropriate. They approved of McComb telling graduates that her faith had given her satisfaction that academic achievements could not provide.

But they nixed portions in which McComb spoke of Christian beliefs, such as Jesus Christ dying on the cross, because such passages amounted to proselytizing. McComb recited those parts during the ceremony anyway, and school officials turned off her microphone.

Within a week, adults had pulled McComb onto national television news shows.

A national conservative legal aid organization is using her situation as the basis of a formal complaint that they hope will result in a U.S. Supreme Court test case.

Still, that McComb - a top student - defied school officials and gave her original speech shows she is firm in her convictions and beliefs.

But many of those who cross the line between public school and religious teachings are people with firm convictions and good intentions. It is a thin line, to be sure, between generally lauding faith and telling others what a particular religion says is the proper way to find that faith.

But the line is there for a reason.

We have said it before: Religious proselytizing belongs in Sunday school, not public school - no matter who delivers the message.