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I'm opposed to capital punisment on GP but I've noticed a reccurring theme in pleas for clemency. The claim that a religious conversion has altered the prisoner so profoundly that he/she should be pardoned for their crime. It is always a Christian conversion that is claimed, too.

If capital punishment is to continue, the religious experience should be disallowed in the appeals process as well as in clemency pleas. The state should not be placed in the position of judging the sincerity and veracity of a convict's religious experience. Neither should the state judge the qulity of one religion v. another. Would a conversion to Islam, Judaism or Paganism be viewed with the same sympathy as one to Christianity?

Thoughts anyone?



As a fundamentalist Christian right-winger I couldn't agree with you more. If anything a Christian conversion would grant a clarity to the horror of the offence that warrented the death penalty and while the conversion should give the murderer peace that they will recieve mercy in the hearafter, they still need to pay for thier crimes. If they truly believe that they will be going to heaven the death penalty isn't that big of a deal.

That's teh religious side of the argument. The legal side is that the state has no right to judge what is or isn't a true religious conversion. Otherwise the state could tell us who's qualified to be a pastor or a priest or elder. It would also put the state in a position of defining what true religion is or worse what THE true religion is.

Putting the "fun" back in Fundamentalist Christian Dogma. " I know God exists because WBAM told me so. " - theory9 JLA brand RACK points = 514k