This week the New Jersey legistlature voted to eliminate the death penalty in their state. I was shocked by this action. I was shocked that a state as liberal as New Jersey actually still had the death penalty on their books.
I'm pro-life. I don't agree with abortions or with euthanasia. I was vehemently against the Terri Schaivo case where they wanted to starve her to death. A part of me feels like I would be hypocritical if I supported the death penalty which ends life when I'm not in favor of ending life in other situations. I feel that it is God's decision when life should end but not man's.
With that said, I don't feel bad for those on death row. I don't cry when the executions happen and I have no desire to protest the law. The people on death row made decisions that got them there. They took another's life, oftentimes in a despicably brutal way. They killed innocent people and so I do not feel bad that they are having the same done to them. Maybe that makes me a hypocrite, but that's how I feel.
What saddens me with the NJ decision is the victim's families. They just want to have justice for their loved ones. One serial killer who's sentence is being commuted to life without parole apparently said when caught, "Oh well, they don't kill them in New Jersey." So in this guy's mind his killing was ok because he was not going to be killed himself. Another convicted murderer who's no longer on death row is a convicted sex offender who killed a little girl. She's the girl behind Megan's law. And now her parents will have to live with the fact that her killer is still living and will continue to live until he dies of natural causes.
I think that there are just things that are so heinous that a civilized society can just not tolerate them. But every day those heinous things are becoming more and more accepted. It's a slippery slope, people. How much longer until Rome falls?
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