While it’s always comforting to be in the majority, it’s also easy to overlook opposing points of view – even the fact that opposing points of view exist.

So when, on our own time, we joined hundreds of our friends and neighbors at the high school stadium for the Portrait for Peace, we didn’t give much thought either to the location or to the fact that the picture was being snapped from the basket of our fire department’s shiny new ladder truck.

While the portrait likely expresses the sentiments of the majority of islanders, it’s not unanimous. Some folks who saw tax-supported institutions seeming to participate in a political expression with which they disagree called foul on the school district, the fire district – and, by extension, on those of us who thought nothing about the situation.

Further inquiry reveals that school district policies were followed to the letter. The district makes facilities available for all legal activities, irrespective of the users’ viewpoints.

That, we think, is right and proper. One of our cherished First Amendment rights is the freedom to assemble peaceably, the classic manifestation of which is coming together in the village square to complain about the king, or the president. The football field is simply another form of the village square, available free or at nominal cost to citizens who want to assemble.

It is critical to note, though, that those rights are available to everyone, not just to those who express a commonly held view. Not only are pro-President Bush folks entitled to gather at the field, so are outright obnoxious groups like the Klan (if, in fact, a taxpaying Kleagle is willing to don his hood publicly on the island).

We’d like to see the fire department apply that same policy of equal community access to equipment. As department director Ken Guy points out, firefighters need to learn how to drive, park and use the ladder truck. We see no compelling reason why they shouldn’t do that for a peace rally, with the understanding that they’d also do it at the behest of other groups. No one complained when a fire truck adorned with a flag graced the 9-11 ceremony in the town square last fall.

The actual cost of running the fire trucks might make such an open-access policy problematic, particularly if there is a fire call while trucks and personnel are otherwise occupied. But why anticipate trouble – if the trucks are over-requested, maybe that’s the time to curb availability.

The dissenters raise some valid points. But they’re also free to step forward with a demonstration of their own if they so choose – on public grounds – and we suspect those in the Portrait for Peace would be the last to complain.