God, ogre comparison doesn't fly with interfaith crowd
Paul A. Anthony, Rocky Mountain News
Published August 24, 2008 at 3:35 p.m.
Updated August 24, 2008 at 3:35 p.m.
COLORADO CONVENTION CENTER — Following the hot topic of abortion, Sister Helen Prejean tackled another: calling for abolition of the death penalty to raucous applause at the DNC's interfaith gathering.
She received nothing but a stony silence, however, when she questioned the basis of the biblical crucifixion story as a "projection of our violent society."
"Is this a God?" Prejeans asked about the belief that God allowed his son, Jesus, to be sacrificed for the sins of humanity. "Or is this an ogre?"
The audience -- to that point in strong agreement with the author of "Dead Man Walking" -- said and did nothing.
Ultimately, however Prejean received a standing ovation for her fiery denouncement of war and her tying it to desensitization caused by the allowance of capital punishment in American prisons.
"Practice of the death penalty on our own soil," Prejeans said, "has made it easier for us to kill those we designate as enemies or suspected enemies."
Prejean railed against what she called "shocking legalisms" used "to legitimize torture of suspected terrorists."
"We need to take death off the table as a punishment," she said, adding that it would allow the U.S. to criticize countries like China for their own human rights records and "hold our heads up high because we don't torture our citizens."
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August 24, 2008
3:48 p.m.
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HopiMedicineMan writes:
Another liberal speaking out of one side of her mouth. What horrible ogre of a party would endorse infanticide?
August 24, 2008
3:51 p.m.
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ItsJustme writes:
Save the guilty, kill the innocent? Does that about sums up "sister" Prejean?
August 24, 2008
3:57 p.m.
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I_Slay_The_Dragon writes:
Abortion. Death Penalty. Government-sponsored
forms of Murder. GOD, is GREATER.
August 24, 2008
4:31 p.m.
Suggest removal
Cowboy63 writes:
...and so the sideshow begins.
This is the party that is supposed to produce the next President?
Doubtful.
August 24, 2008
9:12 p.m.
Suggest removal
ReadCamus writes:
Americans are pitifully ignorant on human rights and a lot else. They don't know, nor do they really care, that statistics (see Amnesty International's "deterrence" page) show that states that routinely use the death penalty have higher overall murder rates than abolition states such as Wisconsin and Massachusetts, year after year after year. Americans don't care, and it is stupidity that does not care about murder rates (yet pretends to). The maintenance of the death penalty in the U.S. retards human rights progress internationally, and it harms the U.S. reputation with Mexico. All for what? A lower murder rate? Not so!
Further, many Americans are stupid on the abortion issue. They imagine that something being decidedly undesirable is equal to its being appropriately and effectively legislated against. This is the sheerest fatuity: People who are rich will simply fly out of the country to get their abortions performed; zero effect. And the poor will get shoddy abortions from quack "doctors". The poor would certainly have more births if abortion were illegal, but does the "pro-lifer" really think legislation that hits only at the poor is good legislation? Answer: yes. (As I said, they're stupid.)
Eventually, abortion will decline, and the death penalty will be abandoned, but it won't be because of any real accrual of American wisdom; it'll be because of political and societal convenience. No, premeditated killing (of adults) won't expire by war, as the previous American nefariousness -slavery- did in the nineteenth century; it will expire because Americans have become too embarrassed by it. Jersey is the first. There will be more.
August 24, 2008
9:23 p.m.
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ReadCamus writes:
The guy who wrote the article, Paul Anthony, seems to have misunderstood the nun's statement, much the way her audience seems to have misunderstood it. She was not making a comparison between God and an ogre, but asking a rhetorical of-course-not question about the crucifixion of Christ? She pointed in her question toward the intent of God in the whole thing: to say with a generosity only God could fathom, Let this be the end of the sinful killing. All is done now. No more of this superstitious killing.
August 25, 2008
8:18 a.m.
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dudleysharp writes:
I. Dead Family Walking: The Bourque Family Story of Dead Man Walking , by D. D. deVinci, Goldlamp Publishing, 2006
"Being devout Catholics, 'the norm' would be to look to the church for support and healing. Again, this need for spiritual stability was stolen by Sister Prejean."
" . . .(DMW) truly belongs on the shelf in the library in the Fiction category."
II. The Victims of Dead Man Walking
by Michael L. Varnado, Daniel P. Smith
A very different story than Sr Prejean's. Varnado was the investigating officer in the murder of Faith Hathaway. 2003
III. "Sister Prejean's Lack of Credibility: Review of "The Death of Innocents", Thomas M. McKenna (New Oxford Review,12/05).
"(Prejean's) book is moreover riddled with factual errors and misrepresentations."
"Williams had confessed to repeatedly stabbing his victim, Sonya Knippers."
"This DNA test . . . concluded that there was a one in nearly four billion chance that the blood could have been someone's other than Williams's."
" . . . (the) Court . . . stated that 'the evidence against Williams was overwhelming.' " "(we) did "not find any evidence of racial bias specific to this case."
Sr. Prejean claims Williams mentally retarded. ". . . (the)federal judge . . . upheld the finding . . . that he had a "low-average I.Q.," and did not suffer from schizophrenia or other major affective disorders. Indeed, Williams's own expert at trial concluded that Williams's intelligence fell within the "normal" range. Prejean mentions none of these facts."
"In addition to lying to the police about how he came to have blood on his clothes, the best evidence of O'Dell's guilt was that Schartner's (the rape/murder vicitim's) blood was on his jacket. Testing showed that only three of every thousand people share the same blood characteristics as Schartner. Also, a cellmate of O'Dell's testified that O'Dell told him he killed Schartner because she would not have sex with him."
"After the trial, LifeCodes, a DNA lab that O'Dell himself praised as having "an impeccable reputation," tested the blood on O'Dell's jacket -- and found that it was a genetic match to Schartner. When the results were not to his liking, O'Dell, and of course Sr. Prejean, attacked the reliability of the lab O'Dell had earlier praised. Again, as with Williams's conviction, the federal court reviewing the case characterized the evidence against O'Dell as 'vast' and 'overwhelming."
"(Prejean) omits the most damning portion of (O'Dell's criminal) record: an abduction charge in Florida where O'Dell struck the victim on the head with a gun and told her that he was going to rape her."
see also
"FOR GOOD REASON, JOE O'DELL IS ON DEATH ROW"
scholar(DOT)lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1995/vp950728/07210224.htm
"Sabine district attorney disputes author's claims in book"
www(DOT)shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050124/NEWS01/501240328/1060
August 28, 2008
4:20 p.m.
Suggest removal
Joe_Camel writes:
Quote: "states that routinely use the death penalty have higher overall murder rates than abolition states such as Wisconsin and Massachusetts, year after year after year." (ReadCamus, Aug. 24 at 9:12 p.m.)
So the death penalty isn't an effective deterrent. That's one way of looking at it. Here's another way: Their high murder rates mean that Texas and some other states still need the death penalty. Wisconsin and other states with much lower murder rates are in the happy position of no longer needing it.