To the editor:
As my husband and I attended the Remembrance Day ceremony in Westbank, we were pleased to have our teenage grandson decide, by choice, to join us.
We have attended most, if not all, of the ceremonies over the past many years as both our fathers were veterans of WW II and we were painfully aware of all they had to endure for us to enjoy the freedoms we have here in Canada today.
So it was very disappointing to have this moment, meant to honour these brave soldiers, hijacked by religious proselytizing.
A pastor was the speaker for the ceremony and chose to utilize this time with his captive audience to go into much detail about how his deity has been instrumental in protecting our freedoms and advocating for peace (in spite of the many contradictions that this entity supports peace).
The fact that this speaker chose to carry his speech well past the 11 o’clock time that we had hoped to have our moment of silence to honour our vets, was nothing short of disrespectful.
I sincerely hope we will live to see the day when religion of any sort is removed from such ceremonies. We were there to pay respect to our fallen and active soldiers, not to be captive to religious propaganda.
Donna Campbell, West Kelowna
