“I wouldn’t give Beck the Key to the Bathroom”

It was about a month ago when I first saw the article in our local news paper. On the second page, there was a small article about how the mayor of Mt. Vernon Washington Bud Norris had made a statement about how he thought he might give Glenn BeckGlenn Beck the key to the city.

I and most people from my community didn’t even know that Glenn Beck was born and raised in Mt. Vernon. This took Skagit Valley by surprise and even though at the time it was still a rumor, it enraged many people.

Within the week, there had been numerous letters to the editor and a few letters written to Bud Norris.

After a couple weeks passed and the news spread, more and more people became outraged and countless more letters were being sent to Bud. Mayor Norris made a statement saying that he had picked a date and that it was set in stone; On September 26th, Glenn Beck would receive the key to the city and from then on, would be known as “Glenn Beck Day”.

There had been a number of rallies and protests leading up to the day, but nothing matched the scale of the protest on the day of Glenn’s arrival. It was about 5:00 PM when I drove up to Macintyre Hall where the ceremony would take place and I could already see a couple hundred people that took to the streets.

The most astounding thing though was not the volume, but who they were; about 50 percent of the protesters were counter protesters in support of Glenn Beck. By the time the protest hit its peak, it became hard to tell which were in support and which were not. At its peak, it was estimated about 800 plus protesters.

Anti Beck protesters yielded signs saying things like:

“Go back home man baby!”

“Seriously?”

“Bud out Norris”

“Change the locks”

“Hate is not a Mt. Vernon Value”

“I wouldn’t give Beck the key to the bathroom”

You get the picture. What was astounding, was the other protesters. The anti Beck protesters seemed to understand why they were there but looking at the signs and chants of the pro Beck protesters, I began to notice that they had no direction or real reason to be there. Walking through the pro Beck side, there were a lot of “I love Beck” signs but I was astonished at how many anti Obama signs there were, the sheer number of tea bags (I even got some Lipton tea bags as a souvenir), and the completely over used words “socialism” and “czar”. It was another tea party.

I tried to talk to the people that were pro Beck, but most of them seemed extremely passive to me and wouldn’t speak, except for one. There was a woman that had placed herself in the middle of all the anti Beck protesters named Ray. To say she was happy to be interviewed was an understatement. “There needs to be more people that put everything they have out on the line for Americans.” She stated. “Obama wants control, empowerment, and to suppress people… He is bringing people to their knees.” She continued, “I would support anyone exposing these monsters in DC.” Our interview was cut a little short because of a couple of people passing by starting arguments with her.

The anti Beck protesters were a lot happier to speak to me. A young protester stated, “I’ve seen a lot of Glenn Beck online and its really disgusting rhetoric… I really don’t think it’s something to recognize.”

I later talked to two women, one of them being a former teacher of mine. My teacher stated, “I am a teacher, and I tell my kids to not just make claims without supporting them and then we have someone who gets paid for entertainment who is doing exactly that. He makes claims that are not well researched and are not well supported. Matter of fact, he makes statements saying, ‘Well I can’t disprove that!’ and that is really bad logic and I think to get paid for that and have innocent Americans that might think it’s the truth is really wrong... with free speech comes responsibility.”

My teacher’s friend added, “He does fantastic stunts on his show with no background to get attention and basically I don’t know if he believes what he says, he is just trying to sell his show, make money and get ratings. He is not honorable. I think if a citizen who receives a key to the city should be a citizen who has contributed to the city and is an honorable citizen and not somebody like Glen Beck.”

As heated as some of the arguments got, I would say that the entire protest was fairly peaceful. There was one small scuff that we caught, only one arrest, do to a man standing in the middle of the road for some reason and the police seemed pretty bored.

As much as the anti Beck protesters screamed and shouted, it came on deaf ears. The ceremony was a complete success, with a full house of 700 people. Mark your calendars, its official, September 26th will forever be known as “Glen Beck Day”.