|
The
chief petitioners for the Life for Life initiative are Mark
Hatfield, Norma Paulus and Dr. William Connor.
Organizers
must get 89,000 signatures in order to place their initiative
on November's ballot.
Saying
he wanted to promote more discussion about capital punishment,
state Rep. Kevin Mannix, traditionally a pro-death penalty
Catholic, signed onto the campaign last week after listening
to Sister Helen.
|
|
Short and solid, with no-nonsense gray hair and lively dark
eyes, Sister Helen Prejean is an accomplished, fluid storyteller.
The author of Dead Man Walking moves around, uses her
hands, raises her voice, then lowers it and leans in close
like she has a secret to share.
She jokes about Hollywood's vision of nuns ("Look, we need
a romantic element in here; what if she and the convicted
killer run away together?") and heartbreakingly mimics the
voices of Louisiana sheriffs, mothers about to lose their
sons and fathers who already have.
She tells stories, she says, to make human connections.
"I talk all the time now," she told a City Club audience
last week, "to get conversation going, debate going, reflection
going about do we really need the death penalty."
Touring the Willamette Valley last week to promote a ballot
initiative to replace the death penalty with mandatory life
imprisonment, Sister Helen highlighted some of the deepest
connections and most profound conflicts that surface when
faith and politics merge in Oregon. On the one hand, Life
for a Life has arrived seemingly out of nowhere to unite
two of the most potent elements in Oregon politics: the
liberal left and the Catholic church. On the other hand,
the coalition has been unable to persuade conservative Christian
legislators to sign on.
In recent years, the Catholic church, Oregon's largest,
has been at odds with the liberal left on high-profile "life"
initiatives seeking to limit access to abortions and to
allow assisted suicide. This year, the two have found common
ground in the anti-death penalty campaign. Whether their
arguments are based on social justice or the sanctity of
life, the Life for a Life campaign provides many faith groups
with a respite from internal differences. "It gives the
Catholic hierarchy the chance to knit together activists
who are normally at each other's throats," says Bill Lunch,
a political science professor at Oregon State University.
David Leslie, the executive director of Ecumenical Ministries
of Oregon, says the initiative brings together a variety
of faith communities because it addresses basic spiritual,
social and political issues. "It hits at some essence of
who we are and what we want as human beings: safety and
security, a just society, appropriate punishment for a crime,"
says Leslie. EMO, an interfaith coalition of 15 denominations
ranging from Quakers to Roman Catholics, is often relegated
to the political sidelines due to a lack of consensus. This
year, it's one of the original sponsors of the initiative.
Prejean says working to abolish the death penalty is about
consistency. She believes life begins at conception and
all lives--innocent and guilty--are precious. "Every human
life," she says, "is worth the whole universe."
The fact that this campaign brings her in alliance with
many who oppose her view on abortion doesn't bother her.
"Good politics has everything to do with building consensus,
and that's what faith works toward, too," she says. "When
things seem to be polarized complete opposites, spirituality
has the power to connect people."
Life for a Life has indeed connected a potent coalition
of religious and political leaders. So far, however, it
has been unable to garner the support of those most associated
with God in the Statehouse--conservative Christians.
While Prejean and others say "Thou shalt not kill," many
conservative Christians believe that God created the death
penalty as the punishment for murder, that mercy may be
granted in the next life but justice is demanded in this
one. To them, being pro-death penalty is not inconsistent
with being pro-life.
"I can be strongly pro-life for innocent babies and strongly
pro-death penalty," says state Sen. Marylin Shannon. "I
am the consistent one. Anti-death penalty activists change
words. The murder of a murderer is not murder; it's killing."
Conservative Christians, however, are no more monolithic
a group than members of the religious left. Speaking with
WW, Shannon unequivocally supported the death penalty,
citing Acts 25:11, Romans 13:4, and Matthew 26:52 from her
study Bible, and said she would have wanted the penalty
imposed on a drunk driver who recently killed two members
of her Willamette Valley district "if he hadn't died" in
the accident.
State Rep. Betsy Close expressed equal conviction that
Scripture mandates the death penalty but greater ambivalence
about its application. "I support it," she said recently,
"but if you have the death penalty it should be really rare.
I really struggle with it because I do believe people can
turn their lives around."
Life for a Life has yet to face any organized opposition.
Given the subject matter, however, it will almost certainly
develop. When it does, it will be a spirited debate in which
both sides go into public-relations battle believing they
have God on their side. As Prejean noted in a talk at First
Unitarian Church last week, "We're all little spin doctors
when we meditate on Scripture."
- - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Willamette Week | originally
published February 9,
2000
|
