KIPTON — Members of a Veterans for Peace group say they were asked not to march in the village’s Memorial Day parade unless they promised not to showcase anything identifying their group.

Michael Kay, an 82-year-old WWII veteran and member of the group, said the Kipton-Camden Ladies Auxiliary, which organizes the parade, told the Veterans for Peace they could not wear anything bearing their insignia or carry a banner and could only march with an American flag.

Delores Whitney, one of five members of the Ladies Auxiliary, said the three military units that typically march in the parade have been uneasy with the group’s message of nonviolence since the Veterans for Peace first participated in the parade in 2007, and the auxiliary was worried the three units would back out if the Veterans for Peace were included again.

“This parade is for them, to appreciate them,” Whitney said of the military units. “I don’t think asking them to carry an American flag and put down any banners that irritate some other people is unreasonable.”

Kay said the Ladies Auxiliary violated his group’s First Amendment rights and, even more egregious, implied that the group was less patriotic than the other veterans groups. When the two groups met in early May to discuss how the Veterans for Peace would participate, Kay said Ladies Auxiliary members lectured the Veterans of Peace about what freedom meant.

“Each of us know a great deal about what that flag means and have a great respect for all service people,” Kay said. “We did not have to be lectured to. We know more about freedom than you will ever know.”

Kay made the comments to Whitney during the regular Village Council meeting Monday night. They both attended the meeting to respond to a letter written by Kipton resident Diane Krueck to Council, local newspapers and state Sen. Sue Morano, D-Lorain, in which Krueck wrote the Veterans for Peace exclusion from the parade “tainted the whole event.”

Krueck is the wife of Kipton Councilman Rick Krueck.

During the meeting, Whitney said the Veterans for Peace group “perpetuates and disregards the sacrifices that soldiers made for our freedoms,” which Kay said he took offense to.

“In this march, we would simply have been doing what her organization says is the purpose of it, which is to show appreciation for those who died or were wounded, many of whom were buddies of mine,” Kay said. “To argue that we were entering the parade in any attitude of disrespect for anyone in the service — to even suggest such a thing is a calumny. It’s false, it’s untrue, and I take very serious exception to it.”

After the meeting, Whitney said it took the Ladies Auxiliary 30 years of organizing the parade to get it up to the size it is now, which includes 260 people and 37 groups walking behind the three military units: The American Legion Colorguard, Blue Knights and Karl Wilson Locke Post. She said she did not want to do anything that would take focus off of honoring the servicemen and women.

“Maybe it’s old-fashioned, and I know the world is changing and we’re here in this tiny, little town, but this was about them,” she said.

Contact Adam Wright at 329-7129 or awright@chroniclet.com.

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