By Julia Berkman
In America, many people tend to think of free speech as a given, not a reason to speak their minds. The folks downtown at the weekly Peace Vigil actively practice their right to free speech every single Friday.
The Peace Vigil in downtown Bellingham has been held for fifty years. If you’ve ever spent time on the corner of Magnolia and Cornwall on a Friday afternoon, you’ve probably seen it too. This event has been going on since December of 1966! Despite that, very few people outside of the participants have ever known about it.
Joseph McDonald has been coming to the Vigil for over a year now. He protests the widely held belief that Jesus and God are judgemental or malevolent.
“I don’t believe Jesus is going to burn everybody in hell forever,” Joseph says, holding a sign that says “Jesus wouldn’t spread hate.”
I asked him whether the Peace Vigil was a chance for people to spread peace, to which he replied, “I think people can express their point of view here.”
Another fixture of the downtown Peace Vigil is Lynn Rosenbloom. She’s been participating in vigils and protests of this kind for almost 25 years. She told me she’s protesting for peace and justice.
“Just a little,” she told me, exasperated.
Lynn is inspired by the people who come down and spread peace every single Friday for the last 50 years. Lynn brandishes a sign that says “Moms for Peace” as she waves at the oncoming cars, most of whom will give her and the other demonstrators a honk or a wave. I asked Lynn why she feels the need to come down to her corner every single Friday.
“The message [of peace] does reach some people and there are many people who feel the same we do, they’re just not as active in it,” she said. “They’ll give a honk or a wave, and even though they aren’t out here, they’re thinking about peace now.”
At about this point in the vigil, a man on the other side of the street started to unfurl a large Trump flag. You may know him as Eric Bostrom, the evangelical preacher who practices free speech on campus. Bostrom is “Pro-Israel, Pro-Gospel, Pro-Trump.” I asked him if he felt that the vigil downtown was promoting peace.
“Sometimes people who promote peace end up promoting war,” he said, in reference to the decisions that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton made regarding Benghazi.
He comes to this street corner every week to promote his gospel or his beliefs.
“There are many aspects of peace,” he tells me, his Trump sign fluttering in the wind. “If you look at all the individual signs here, there a quite a number that have nothing to do with peace,” he tells me, indicating signs that talk of deforestation and LGBT+ rights.
We spoke about war, and the fact that Trump is decidedly against international intervention. Because of this, Bordstom says he is “the only one out here who is technically promoting peace.”
There are many colorful and interesting characters downtown exercising their right to free speech. If you have the chance, I recommend you go downtown and speak to these people about their views. You may learn more than you think.
Contrary to the impression given in the article Eric Bostrom does not come to participate in the peace vigil, he comes to ridicule and berate those at the rally.
while every one is entitled to their own opinions – Eric’s opinions and attitude are entirely his own and rejected by those of us in attendance at the vigil.