The teachings of Jesus call us to love and forgive even our enemies,
replacing anger and retaliation with reconciliation.
The teachings of Gatama demonstrate that only good acts can yield
goodness; hence serenity requires our purposeful intentions.
Islam urges us to pray for love and compassion in our lives, and also for
the strength to resist arrogance.
The teachings of Confucius remind us that controlling ourselves brings
more meaning to our lives than our efforts to control others. Be harder on
yourself than others, he advises.
Native American religious traditions inspire us with faith in the dignity
of every single being. Each one of us has important tasks to perform in the
work of nature.
Earth centered religions advise us to be patient with ourselves and with
others, and thereby learn from our struggles in life.
The death penalty undermines our fundamental respect for the inherent
worth and dignity of human beings by sanctioning the deliberate act of
killing an individual.
The death penalty contradicts our faith in the redemption by character.
... To Reform A Public Policy That Has Failed and Debased Us.
The death penalty is an act of vengeance that negates our country's
stated public policy of accomplishing personal change and rehabilitation in
our criminal justice system.
Death sentences are brought to bear overwhelmingly on the poor.
Inadequate legal representation of poor defendants is a characteristic of our
criminal justice system.
Death sentences are brought to bear to a large extent on people with
mental disabilities, low intelligence, or trauma from abuse by others who
have not or could not obtain adequate education and treatment.
The death penalty is applied in a racially biased manner. Studies
repeatedly demonstrate that the race of the victim and the race of the
defendant are prominent factors in death penalty sentencing.
There have been some widely recognized cases of unjust executions during
our lifetimes.
Some supporters of the death penalty have attempted to justify it based
on the relative costs. They believe, erroneously, that the costs of
executions are much less than the costs of life imprisonment without parole.
Studies of actual cases show that it's the other way around. The death
penalty appeals process typically runs up millions of dollars in legal costs
for each individual case.
The death penalty is prohibited by the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. Most of the countries of Europe, and also Canada, prohibit the death
penalty.
Our tenacious use of the death penalty in the United States is isolating
us from the countries of the World we respect the most and desire to be our
friends and allies.
The death penalty is not proven to be an effective deterrent to crime.
States with the death penalty do not have lower murder rates.
Offenders are usually driven by drugs, psychosis, ego, revenge and
flight-or-fight impulses. They are not thinking about the penalties. They
are having delusions of invincibility. Rage overcomes rationality. Thus, we
need solutions to crime that help people to think straight.
There is no evidence that the death penalty actually brings about
healing for the families of victims. It does not relieve the suffering of a
personal lose.
Surveys indicate that public opinion supports life imprisonment without
parole combined with some form of restitution for the families of victims.
The death penalty helps the offender evade personal and emotional
accountability to the victim's family, our community and to herself (himself).
The death penalty is popular with the public but deceives us with the
false notion that it is a simple remedy for the evil of crime.
There is an inherent fallacy in the reasoning that we should execute
offenders because they deserve what they have inflicted on others. It
requires us to lower our behavior to the level of the offenders' acts of
cruelty. Thus, it requires us to debase ourselves.
There are many inherent fallacies in the reasoning that abolishing the
death penalty is about "rewarding" offenders for their so-called "jailhouse
conversions." It cynically denies the existence of character. It fails to
understand the meaning of repentance, which does seek a reward. It also
fails to recognize that abolishing the death penalty is not about the
offenders, but rather, about all of us.
In the words of G. Peter Fleck, Unitarian Universalist minister and
writer, "We have to learn again that in minding our neighbor's business, we
mind our own business, and we are our brother's and sister's keeper.
We know based on the history of our world that violent acts like
executions cannot bring us lasting peace. We reach peace by learning to
understand others.
Therefore, we pledge our congregation to work for the abolition of the death
penalty in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the United States by joining and
leading community actions. We know that there are many ways by which we may
serve this compassionate cause. Among them are public advocacy, witnessing
before our community in vigils and demonstrations, service to the families of
victims, the unjustly accused, and the offenders, giving financial support,
educating ourselves on the public issues, and seeking religious inspiration.
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