Off the Cushion
Over at my website, I just blogged about how last week I had a lot of people on the street stop me to ask me what my shirt said. (You can see it just to the right.)
I noted at my website that didn’t do anything about the late Troy Davis and his case there, largely because I was so incredibly busy at the time of his execution by the state of Georgia. (My tweets about him got noticed by The Washington Post along with those of a variety of other religious Twitterers, though.)
I also mention that, while I was, like many, particularly concerned about the specifics of Troy’s case, I’ve been an anti-death penalty advocate my whole adult life. You can read a bit about my activist work on this issue there if you’re interested.
There are a variety of reasons that I’m against the death penalty — all of them summed up pretty well by the “Facts” page on the Death Penalty Focus website (whether you are pro or con on this issue, I hope you will at least look at this page).
Many aspects of Buddhist thought and practice, as well as the arguments of some Buddhist leaders and organizations, do much to influence me on this matter as well. For more, I recommend reading Damien P. Horigan’s piece “Buddhism and Capital Punishment”, His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s “Message Supporting a Moratorium on the Death Penalty”, and this statement from the Buddhist Peace Fellowship…
Society is like a dense fabric, made of many intertwined threads. Murder is like a violent tear in the fabric. The death penalty is like trying to repair the tear by cutting away at the fabric when we should take care to weave the many split threads back into the fabric. …We oppose all executions, in keeping with the First Precept of Buddhism, which says not to harm any living thing.
Anyway, long story short, I like to make sure to promote anti-death penalty work as often as I can, so, please…
Take a stand for Troy Davis.
Pledge to fight to abolish the death penalty.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In