| 
 Dear
Friends,
As
of last week, the United States officially abandoned Somalia.
Thanks to a narrow ruling by the US Supreme Court banning
the practice, Somalia is now the only nation on earth to legally
execute 16 and 17-year-old children. What is so stunning to
me is that it took a Supreme Court ruling in 2005 to stop
the execution of teenagers. Equally stunning is the apparent
lack of shame we feel about this fact in places like Texas.
I
know we liberals have come to believe that shame and guilt
are bad emotions, but that is not always true. Listening to
the news reports of the Supreme Court’s ruling and the
reaction in Dallas, I was aware that there are times when
shame is the only appropriate emotion. For example, of the
22 teenagers executed in this country in recent years, 13
of them were executed in Texas; the other nine were executed
by the other 49 states. Where is the shame? Of
the 72 teenage offenders on death row, 29 are in Texas, and
14 are in Alabama. A map of the U.S. illustrating which states
still allow the execution of teenagers shows that 12 of the
19 are former slave-holding states of the “Bible Belt.”
Where is the shame?
 The
European Union filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court
urging them to stop the execution of minors because they believed
it to be a grave violation of human rights. Almost every professional
psychological and sociological organization agreed with them
and presented evidence that teenagers still lacked impulse
control and a fully developed sense of the irrevocable consequences
of their actions. Any human who has a teenage child or has
been a teenager could have told them that. As I thought about
these countries where only about 4% of the citizens attend
church and about these secular organizations, I wondered what
they must think about the religion of the south. Here the
majority of us attend church, believe in God, understand that
the Bible is Holy Scripture and pray regularly. Surely they
must wonder what good it is doing us. More to the point, they
must wonder what good it is doing the world.
Where
is the mercy and grace that we in the church spend so much
time talking about?
 Make
no mistake, some of the crimes committed by these 16 and 17-year-olds
were horrendous, and the public needs to be protected from
them. However, study after study has demonstrated that the
cost of execution is greater than the cost of life in prison;
and, the death penalty is no deterrent to crime. Abraham Lincoln
once spared the life of a young soldier who was convicted
of desertion in the face of battle. He sent him back to the
army with the words, “I have observed that it never
does a boy much good to shoot him.” We who believe in
the power of God to transform a human life ought to believe
this all the more when the person in question is still a teenager.
My
objective in writing this newsletter is to call those of us
who identify ourselves as people of faith to assert our presence
and to bear witness to a different expression of that faith.
When
Europeans or secular Americans consider the witness and values
of people of faith, we must be visible and vocal enough that
they do not assume that Christians are just the modern moral
equivalent of slave-owners. One of our goals at Hope for Peace
& Justice is to present a different image, and provide
a different voice.
Our
aim is to bear witness to the reality people of faith are
people who:
- care
about the poor, not just tax cuts and private savings accounts
for the rich and middle class,
- are
more concerned about justice than monuments with the ten
commandments on public property,
- believe
that saving the environment is a matter of faith, so we
wonder what Jesus would drive,
- have
read the whole Bible and know that it contains sacred covenants
between same gender people
- believe
that billions of dollars for peace and ending poverty is
a moral alternative to trillions of dollars for war and
the military
- know
that executing a sinner never does their soul much good.
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While
researching last Wednesday night’s sermon on lullabies,
I came across a powerful video clip entitled Lullabies
from Iraq. Watch it and judge for yourself. Vocals
by Laura Bush and Mothers of America ... Pictures provided
by President G W. Bush ... Paid for by your tax dollars.
If it touches you, why not forward it to your friends?
MORE... |
Death row headstones |
Why
is Texas #1 in executions? by Ned Walpin
There are many legal and cultural explanations for why
Texas executes far more people than any other state and
is doing so at a pace that has no parallel in the modern
era of the death penalty in the U.S. What follows is a
summary of the analyses. MORE... |
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Hang
em' High Texas by David P. Atwood
Texas is in no danger of losing its worldwide reputation
as the "Hang em' High State". Of course, we
don't hang people here anymore, but we are very proficient
in executing our unwanted citizens through lethal injection;
so much so that other states have sought us out for our
expertise in killing human beings. MORE... |
Huntsville Wall Unit |
Texas
Needs Life-Without-Parole Option by Seth Oldmixon
In light of sharp criticism of Texas' execution record
during the recent presidential election, state lawmakers
need to act decisively in this legislative session to
improve the Texas criminal justice system. As great a
state as we live in, we should always strive to make it
better. An effective way to begin addressing problems
with criminal justice is to trust jurors with the option
of sentencing criminals to life without parole. MORE... |
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Texas
HB284, sponsored by Tony Goolsby was referred
to the Criminal
Jurisprudence Committee.
Please call the chair of the committee to request
a hearing:
Chair: Rep. Terry Keel--(512) 463-0652
Vice Chair: Rep Debbie Riddle (512) 463-0572
B&O Chair: Aaron Pena (512) 463-0426
If your representative is on the committee, please
call:
Mary Denny (512) 463-0688 (Flower Mound)
Terry Hodge (512) 463-0586 (Dallas)
Elvira Reyna (972) 279-7030 (Mesquite)
Texas
SB60, sponsored by Eddie Lucio, Jr. was referred
to the Criminal
Justice Committee.
Please call the chair of the committee to request
a hearing:
Chair: Senator John Whitmire (512) 463-0115
Vice Chair: Kel Seliger (512) 463-0131
If your Senator is on the committee, please call:
John Carona (512) 463-0116 (Dallas)
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