Being Against the Death Penalty.

Being against the death penalty is a radical point of view. But if this makes me a radical, so be it. I believe the death penalty is morally reprehensible. It’s simply state sanctioned murder. What gives me any moral authority to say this? Nothing, really, except strong personal belief based on personal experience.

I’m a pretty normal person (if there is such a thing). Relatively educated, with two university degrees in Interior Design. I also love to study classical philosophers, such as Aristotle, Socrates, and Marcus Aurelius. These dudes were pretty amazing deep thinkers. They give me a frame of reference. I’ve also been known to read a Thesaurus for bedtime reading.

But way back in 1968, when I was nineteen years old, nothing could have prepared me for the murder of a parent, my mother. She was an innocent shopkeeper, when a maniac entered her store on a normal day  in her Antiques shop in an affluent suburb of Chicago, and killed her. I won’t go into all the awful details. It shocked the community, but her death was a tsunami that rocked my two other siblings and my father. We pretty much all went our own separate ways after that, each trying to cope with our own profound grief.

I was very close to my mom. Nothing in my religion (Jewish) or philosophical readings I was so proud of studying could have prepared me for the profound grief and disenfranchised feelings I was experiencing. But somehow I managed to pull through. After all, I knew that my mother would have wanted me to go on. And my father, a good role model,  was carrying on in his own strong, inimitable fashion.

Eventually, out of this profound grief, some transformative changes happened to me. Instead of becoming hardened and bitter, my deep grief softened me. Whereas before her death, I was sort of hard, flippant and cynical (typical teenager); after her death, I became softer. I began to appreciate the preciousness of life. I began to appreciate our mortality, and the fact that life can be grabbed from us at any moment. And that at any moment, someone we love can suddenly disappear. And then I began to appreciate the people around me more.

So I became a better person. I decided my moms’ life would have more meaning if I continued on and became a better person. Eventually I found Buddhism. I loved the buddhist philosophy that above all, we should behave with compassion and loving kindness to all sentient beings. This made sense to me.

And then I formed another belief.

That I’m firmly against the death penalty. That the taking of life by the state in revenge or as punishment for someone who has committed the crime of murder is wrong. Yes, a terrible crime against humanity has been committed. Penalties should be swift. The perpetrator needs to be incarcerated, perhaps for life. But execution is morally reprehensible. There needs to be space for repentance and forgiveness.

I would never feel better knowing that someone else died because they killed my mother, horrific as it is. She was a beautiful, peace loving soul. I don’t have to forgive her murderer either. That’s not up to me. I’m at peace with her death. But  I also don’t have to wish for revenge that would destroy my own peace of mind.

So somewhere along the line, the killing has to stop. Blood revenge has to stop. This is a very unpopular viewpoint, even radical. Being against the death penalty is a radical point of view. So if some of my points of view are radically different from the rest of society, I accept this. But I stand with the Pope on this one. He’s got the right idea and the moral authority too. I’m glad he’s taking the lead on this one. Namaste.

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