2 Upstagers One-Upped at Peace March

On a day for celebrating motherhood, dozens of county moms chose to participate with their children Sunday in a bell-ringing peace celebration, which began at the Chapman College chapel and wound its way to the nearby Plaza Circle in Orange.

It was sponsored by WAND--Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament. Literature against nuclear arms was sold outside the chapel. And a few participants got into a political debate with two rightists who carried signs out on the sidewalk poking fun at the group’s cause.

But inside the chapel, the closest thing to a political statement came in a children’s song by “Uncle Ruthie,” the moniker for Los Angeles radio personality Ruth Buell. She sang that people should “replace each missile with mistletoe” and that “the only bomber I like is in the Hall of Fame.”

The rest of it was a crowd of people--about 120--joining hands and listening to entertainment such as the Ring & Rejoice Hand Bell Choir from the First United Methodist Church of Orange.

Robin and Greg Gray of El Toro brought their two children. “It was just a nice way to share Mother’s Day with our kids, sharing thoughts of peace with others,” Greg Gray said.

The two right-wingers on the sidewalk, however, scoffed at the peace gathering.

“They’re having a great time exploiting their children to get across their political statement,” said 21-year-old James Bieber of Huntington Beach. He was with his brother, Chris Bieber, 22, both members of Young Americans for Freedom.

At first, the two one-upped the WAND people, when the peace gatherers began their four-block march to the center plaza in Orange.

The brothers walked at the head of the group, with their anti-disarmament signs (“How do you enforce peace? With force.”)

That at first made the march appear to spectators to be an anti-disarmament gathering. But two Orange city police officers monitoring the march suggested to the WAND leaders that all but the first marchers fall back, which they did.

The rest of the group then took a different street and was almost to the plaza before the Bieber brothers realized they’d been had.

Participants in the Mother’s Day celebration disagreed with the Biebers’ contention that they were exploiting their children.

The idea, said Michele McFadden, one of the organizers, was to share the day with their children and hope for a time when “children of all countries of the world embrace one another.”

In a bid to further that dream, the marchers had a short disarmament message read at the plaza in English, Farsi and Hebrew, to symbolize peace for people of the United States, Iran and Israel.

Another person was supposed to read the message in Arabic but failed to show. But the Hebrew reader, Sharon Liger of Santa Ana, and the Farsi reader, Nagrin Mizani of Orange, embraced afterward.

“It was a wonderful day,” Mizani said. “It’s the regime in my country that wants war, not the people. The people want peace.”

The Bieber brothers--who branded President Reagan too liberal and expounded on the virtues of former Marine Lt. Col. Oliver L. North--weren’t buying any of that. They left, their “don’t disarm” signs tucked under their arms.