(letter in DLN 1/21)

In your Jan. 15 editorial on the Saturday courthouse vigils, you misrepresent the situation and ignore real history. The fact is, one group has been holding a dignified and legal assembly at the courthouse for five years focused on our government’s policy in Iraq, while a second group showed up in September with the clear hope of disrupting, or shutting down, that constitutionally protected assembly.

No one should expect a legal assembly redressing the government to go away or to alter its message at the whim of individuals who support what the assembly is redressing. That would be shameful. To clarify the letter writer cited, we do not “only protest Republican use of military force.”

Recently, many of us protested Rep. Joe Sestak for his pro-war votes, and some of us protested Bill Clinton’s bombing of a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan. The list goes on. The point is, if those opposed to our view think we’re “hypocrites” or worse, that’s fine. And, as we’ve consistently indicated, we’re always open to cordial debate.

Those of us in the anti-war vigil do not, and we never will in the future, “bully, intimidate or threaten” anyone. We agree, those who oppose us have every right to assemble where they choose, even if it creates tension. The fact is, they chose, as their leader Rich Davis said publicly, to “protest the protesters.” They are not assembling at the courthouse to redress or to support their government; they are there focused on us, and the fact is, they are personally insulting, loud and abusive.

As you suggest, we are determined to “maintain our cool” and, as Americans, to keep constitutionally redressing our government as this dignified vigil has done unhindered for five years.

John Grant
Veterans for Peace Philadelphia Area Chapter 31