Moral March: Peaceful protest is at the heart of American rights

Thousands of people took to the streets of Raleigh over the weekend to protest everything from the passage of House Bill 2 in the state Legislature to the election of Donald Trump as president and his avowed intent to repeal the Affordable Care Act and his efforts to ban certain immigrants from entering the country.

We disagree with much of what the protesters were saying, but we believe they had every right to express their frustrations.

This is America, and no matter what your opinions might be, you have the right to voice them publicly, just as we have the right in this space to express our point of view on any given subject.

That is what has helped make our nation great, the openness with which we permit citizens to vent their displeasure over any issue that they think needs to be addressed. In many places around the world, such behavior would bring about swift retribution from authorities. But here, in the land of the free, it is simply business as usual, and thank God for that.

That freedom was bought with the lives of many selfless men and women who fought long and hard for it. So although we believe much of what was said during the protests is wrong, we applaud those people who made the effort to say it.

Published in Editorials on February 13, 2017 10:15 AM