Last weekend, Brett Matthews’ friends and family held a fundraiser at Warden’s Bar & Grill in Lewiston. They wanted to help pay his legal costs as he defends himself against a criminal charge of desecration of a place of worship and a civil rights complaint stemming from an incident at a local mosque on July 3.

“We don’t condone what he did,” bar owner Virginia Gagne said. “People make mistakes in life. He made a mistake.”

It was a mistake to roll a pig’s head in the crowded mosque, but Matthews contends he intended it as a joke.

The laughs continued last week as the band playing at the party donned pig face masks while performing a patriotic song.

We know. It was an act in poor taste.

However, let’s put this in perspective based on community experience.

People attending the private party were there to support Matthews, Gagne said, and to support America and equality. In fact, Gagne noted that they often have a pig roast on the weekends, but avoided that for the fundraiser because of the situation.

When former Mayor Larry Raymond penned his now-infamous letter urging Somali families to slow their immigration to Lewiston, world reaction was poor. The letter, written in defense of taxpayers, divided this community, yet we’ve learned a great many lessons in tolerance and acceptance since then. It was a slow process, but there has been progress.

The phrase “culture clash” is in our vernacular for a reason. We don’t have instant “culture compatibility” when very different cultures collide, as they have in Lewiston.

Was Matthews wrong? Absolutely.

He says he knows it.

His friends know it.

His family knows it.

The community knows it.

However, the same senses surged around Raymond’s letter, touching off frank discussions, community awareness and widespread support and acceptance of the Somali immigrants.

Matthews’ act was vile, but we look at it as an opportunity to continue those discussions and for people of all cultures to focus on acceptance of one another.

Matthews and others have said that they didn’t realize there was a mosque downtown. They didn’t realize that pigs were considered offensive to Muslims. Hard to believe, but now they know. That’s progress.

Somalis may have assumed that Matthews and others knew how Muslims view pork. For Somalis to understand not everyone knew that is progress, too.

Raymond’s letter and the ensuing uproar were a painful experience, but they did result in newfound community and cultural understanding. The pig-bowling incident can be the same kind of catalyst if we employ it so.