Lie or Life?

 

 

Here’s the problem, my former political party wants to rally votes behind claims of “end abortion, no embryonic stem cell research, protect those without a voice”, from the rooftops they proclaimed “Life is Sacred”!  Then in the next moment support killings in the name of “Justice” in our courts.  What?!  But it’s no better in my new political party with the Democrats acknowledging that capital punishment is an ineffective and racially and economically biased vehicle for fighting crime, yet they are all about killing the unborn for the sake of convenience.

 

According to the Washington Post, 9 Feb 2007, Barrack Obama is pro-death penalty but wants greater measures employed to ensure the wrong person isn’t executed.  That’s a problem since 129 people have been freed from Death Row (not commuted to life in prison, but freed) after DNA testing and other evidence proved they didn’t commit the crime. (Staff Report, House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights)  Since 1973, Florida has executed 60 inmates.  In the same span of time, 21 Florida Death Row inmates have been exonerated for innocence.  These stats show that states do error in death row convictions.  So how many others nation wide have been put to death but were also innocent.

 

So I’m stuck in the middle.  I strongly believe that all life is sacred, ALL life, the unborn and the person on death row.  However, Christians don’t believe all life is sacred, just the unborn ones.  Republicans love their Death Penalty, Democrats love their right to kill the unborn, I mean love to support a woman’s right to kill the unborn, I mean love to support a woman’s right to choose. 

 

So how do I vote in this upcoming election?  As a card carrying member of Amnesty International I stand with them and will do what I can toward the abolition of the Death Penalty worldwide and specifically in the U.S.  88 per cent of all known executions in 2007 took place in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the USA. (http://www.amnesty.org/en/death-penalty#figures) Nice company we’re keeping.  So again, Democrat or Republican, who to vote for?

 

Sadly the “church” is as clueless as the two political parties on this one.  Yes the Mosaic Law, the Old Covenanat, says an eye for an eye. But check the Hebrew with an unbiased mind.  Eye for an Eye wasn’t the rule, it was a boundry for people (like all of us) who want payback as well as justice.  Punitive damages added on so they “Learn their lesson”.  Retaliation in gang violence, war, any aggression is never one for one.  The aggrieved or wounded party always wants to extract more than what was afflicted.  Eye for an Eye was a restriction, a boundry.  We humans always want to escalate in vengence.  You took my eye, I’m taking your eye, a hand and four toes.  The law of Moses didn’t allow this.  Eye for an eye was a boundry to protect society.  If someone breaks your leg, you cannot go back and break their arm and their leg too.  But let’s go ahead and look at the new covenant, what you religeous people are supposed to be adhearing to. (Ha, what a novel concept)  Your prophet Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’   But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.”  Gandhi commented that “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth leaves the whole world blind and with dentures.”

 

Taking it a step further, the Gospels tell the story of a group of people who were ready to stone an adultress. (Stoning was the legal consequence of adultery) They ask Jesus for his support of this death penalty case.  His response is that they are all adulterers.  He says, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:7) As a law abiding Rabbi, Jesus doesn’t condone capital punishement, even though it is the law.  If those of you who call yourself Christians are willing to look at people through the eyes of Christ you will see new things.  In the murderers you can see your own hatred, in the addict you can see your own addictions.  In the saints, you catch glimpses of your holiness.  You can see your own brokenness, your own violence, your own ability to destroy and you can see your own sacredness, your own capacity to love and forgive.  When all of us realize that we are wretched and beautiful, (you have beauty within you, no matter what a family member or significant other might have said.  Beauty IS in you) we are freed to see others the same way.

 

So who to vote for?  I absolutely want a person convicted of a crime to serve their time in prison and never release them if their crime warrents it.  But I only have two candidates to vote for this coming November.  If you have any advice, comments, help for my decision making process, please let me know.  I am open to and want to hear from all sides on this one. If this has touched you in any way, please comment. Even if it’s to say I’m a fucking idiot..  Your words have value to me.

 

Peace,

 

~Rafael

P.S.  Much thanks to Shane Claiborn for helping me understand my own feelings on this topic.