DON'T HATE THE PLAYER, HATE THE GAME, PART I of II

Debate Heats up as Presidential Visit to Salt Lake City Approaches

By Tracy Medley, 8-28-06

This Wednesday Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson and an estimated 5000 Utahns plan to protest the visit of President George W. Bush. The intended protest has been cause for much controversy over that past several weeks, provoking some critics to go so far as to label those who intend to participate as being “on the terrorists’ side,” but with the country embroiled in its third year of war and no end in sight, is now really the time for such “You’re either with us, or you’re against us” rhetoric? Some Utah families of fallen soldiers seem to think so.

Tony and Amy Galvez, the parents of Marine Cpl. Adam A. Galvez, who was killed recently in Iraq, expressed both grief and outrage to Matthew D. LaPlante of The Salt Lake Tribune.

“I don’t want Cindy Sheehan and Rocky Anderson to be the only voices the world hears. I want our voices to be heard. I want the world to know our troops are wonderful.”

In a horrible twist of fate Amy Galvez had written a letter to the Tribune just before hearing the news of her son’s death. In the letter she expressed disgust with Mayor Anderson and others who plan to protest claiming, “You cannot say you support the troops and tell the world that what they are doing is wrong…I believe the words of Mayor Anderson, as well as other elected officials who speak out against our military and their mission, in essence give support and momentum to the enemy.”

Tony Galvez echoed his wife’s sentiment by saying, “You can’t support the troops and be against the war, it just doesn’t work.”

In a show of solidarity with the Galvez family, Collette Gourley, wife of Staff Sgt. Greg Gourley who was killed in Iraq last February, added her voice, in Monday’s Deseret Morning News, “To think that [Rocky Anderson] is protesting my husband’s commander in chief makes me extremely irritated. I wholeheartedly agree with Cpl. Adam Galvez’s parents when they said that he is partly responsible for the deaths of our soldiers. As far as I’m concerned, it’s either black or white –there is no gray area here. You are either in support of our military troops, or you are on the terrorists’ side.”

A poll conducted by The Salt Lake Tribune Monday shows that forty-five percent of Utahns agree with Gourley and the Galvez family.

In this war of ideology it seems that the true intentions of those Utahns in disagreement with our government are being mischaracterized and buried beneath a great wall of “on message” speechifying by the likes of Paul T. Mero, president of the Sutherland Institute, who had a very pot-meet-the-kettle moment in his recent Op-ed piece for The Salt Lake Tribune, “Every Utahn of good will should be appalled that some of our civic leaders driven by ideology, not the common good, would disrupt the annual celebration of the American Legion.” Perhaps, though some “Utahns of good will” are appalled at right-leaning, opportunistic civic leaders, driven by their own “ideology” using the American Legion convention and Bush’s impending visit to further their own politics as well. Mr. Mero, I’m looking at you. Yes, the American Legion did recently pass a resolution declaring their endorsement for the so-called “natural family,” but Mero is out of line when he compares their resolution to the monumentally creepy and archaic decree passed in Kanab earlier this year. “Full quiver of children,” anyone? He is also out of line when he suggests that the protest scheduled for Wednesday is in any way directed toward the American Legion or the troops currently serving our country. Though Mr. Mero does make one point with which we can all agree, “Honest Americans fight just wars to defend and protect their families, faiths, and communities and those of our neighbors across the globe in wisdom.” The key word there being, “just.”

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