56 protesters watched by a respectable sampling of the media participated in
a candlelight
vigil at the Twin Cities Plaza in Brewer. Shivering in the March cold but warmed
by mutual dedication to overturning an unjust law, participants
stood in a large circle holding candles. One by one they stepped forward to
pick up a symbolic apple and say a few, often unprepared, words about
justice and injustice, about human dignity, and about determination.
A student spoke briefly and then hugged the teacher who had 'turned her life around'.
Some words brought smiles; some were spoken through tears. All were spoken from
the heart. Participants heard again the numbers that seem to condemn this law as
grandstanding, political convenience and hysteria. To those present, no twisting
of data, no protection of political face, no frightened lashing out can overcome
the basic fact that a group of people is being forced to give up the right to
the privacy of their personal lives in no good cause.
It wasn't just school personnel who were there and angry. Others came from the
community, from the school board, from all walks of life. And there were students.
Perhaps after all this law is a wonderful tool in the education of our young. From
it they are learning history -- and the sociology of democracy.
One participant later offered this quote from George Washington: "Government is not reason;
it is not eloquence. It is force. Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
Organizers thought the vigil a success. There was a sharing of strength and
an energizing -- and the media were there. Both Bernie Huebner and Suzanne
Malis-Andersen were interviewed for local television stations. Did anybody catch
these stories?
Don Tarbet, MEAF website