{"id":95642,"date":"2016-06-04T06:37:17","date_gmt":"2016-06-04T13:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=95642"},"modified":"2016-06-04T06:37:17","modified_gmt":"2016-06-04T13:37:17","slug":"excellent-a-fight-to-abolish-the-death-penalty-led-by-conservatives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2016\/06\/excellent-a-fight-to-abolish-the-death-penalty-led-by-conservatives.html","title":{"rendered":"Excellent! A fight to abolish the death penalty led by conservatives"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
\n

Colby Coash<\/a> can point to the moment his evolution in thinking about the death penalty began.<\/p>\n

It was Sept. 3, 1994, and Coash \u2014 now a conservative senator in the Nebraska legislature but then a freshman at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln \u2014 decided to go with some friends to the state penitentiary. Willie Otey, convicted of first-degree murder, was set to be executed at midnight, and people were gathering in the parking lot outside. Coash can still remember the scene: the live band, the grilling meat, the revelers popping cans of beer and chanting, \u201cFry him!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou wouldn\u2019t have been able to tell the difference between the parking lot of the penitentiary and a tailgate. It was pretty ugly,\u201d Coash says now. Even though he went to the event as a supporter of capital punishment, he says, \u201cit kind of changed my heart. I thought, \u2018I don\u2019t want to be a part of state-sponsored killing.\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He\u2019s perfectly right, of course\u2013and is thinking with the Church\u2019s obvious consistency about the dignity of human life and its protection from conception to natural death. \u00a0And note that he is no playing games about distinctions between the grave intrinsic evil of abortion vs. the death penalty. \u00a0Yes, granted the death penalty is not intrinisically immoral. \u00a0So what? \u00a0The Church\u2019s question is not \u201cWhen do we get<\/em> to kill somebody?\u201d \u00a0That is the question the slave of the Right Wing Culture of Death asks. \u00a0Behind it lies the morality of the tailgate partiers.<\/p>\n

The Church asks \u201cWhen do we have to kill and how can we possibly avoid it?\u201d \u00a0The practical answer, with respect to the death penalty, is \u201cNever. \u00a0So don\u2019t do it.\u201d \u00a0Hence, three popes and the US\u00a0bishops call for the abolition of the death penalty and there is not one reason, except for a sinful lust for blood, to fight them on it.<\/p>\n

Somebody with a consistent life ethic who is docile\u00a0to the Church simply agrees with this and then gets back to the task of fighting to save the unborn. \u00a0Somebody who is a slave of the GOP Culture of Death claims that stopping abortion is his core non-negotiable priority\u2013and then proceeds to use the unborn as human shields for his war on the Church\u2019s teaching against the death penalty.<\/p>\n

Be more prolife, not less. \u00a0Agree with the Church. \u00a0Stop fighting her. \u00a0Abolish the death penalty. \u00a0Save the unborn.<\/p>\n

Bravo Colby Coash for showing that conservatives can be fully prolife!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Colby Coash can point to the moment his evolution in thinking about the death penalty began. It was Sept. 3, 1994, and Coash \u2014 now a conservative senator in the Nebraska legislature but then a freshman at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln \u2014 decided to go with some friends to the state penitentiary. Willie Otey, convicted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[278,772],"class_list":["post-95642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-abolish-the-death-penalty","tag-be-more-prolife-not-less"],"yoast_head":"\nExcellent! A fight to abolish the death penalty led by conservatives<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Colby Coash can point to the moment his evolution in thinking about the death penalty began. It was Sept. 3, 1994, and Coash \u2014 now a conservative senator\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2016\/06\/excellent-a-fight-to-abolish-the-death-penalty-led-by-conservatives.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Excellent! A fight to abolish the death penalty led by conservatives\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Colby Coash can point to the moment his evolution in thinking about the death penalty began. It was Sept. 3, 1994, and Coash \u2014 now a conservative senator\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2016\/06\/excellent-a-fight-to-abolish-the-death-penalty-led-by-conservatives.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Catholic and Enjoying It!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-06-04T13:37:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark Shea\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mark Shea\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2016\/06\/excellent-a-fight-to-abolish-the-death-penalty-led-by-conservatives.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2016\/06\/excellent-a-fight-to-abolish-the-death-penalty-led-by-conservatives.html\",\"name\":\"Excellent! A fight to abolish the death penalty led by conservatives\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-06-04T13:37:17+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-06-04T13:37:17+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#\/schema\/person\/c1a9ac1e557d3c626974fd6692818ad5\"},\"description\":\"Colby Coash can point to the moment his evolution in thinking about the death penalty began. It was Sept. 3, 1994, and Coash \u2014 now a conservative senator\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2016\/06\/excellent-a-fight-to-abolish-the-death-penalty-led-by-conservatives.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2016\/06\/excellent-a-fight-to-abolish-the-death-penalty-led-by-conservatives.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2016\/06\/excellent-a-fight-to-abolish-the-death-penalty-led-by-conservatives.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Excellent! A fight to abolish the death penalty led by conservatives\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/\",\"name\":\"Catholic and Enjoying It!\",\"description\":\"Mark Shea's Blog: So That No Thought of Mine, No Matter How Stupid, Should Ever Go Unpublished Again!\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#\/schema\/person\/c1a9ac1e557d3c626974fd6692818ad5\",\"name\":\"Mark Shea\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f287911f45adc932ad24ddbae3597ed5?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f287911f45adc932ad24ddbae3597ed5?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Mark Shea\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/author\/markshea\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Excellent! A fight to abolish the death penalty led by conservatives","description":"Colby Coash can point to the moment his evolution in thinking about the death penalty began. It was Sept. 3, 1994, and Coash \u2014 now a conservative senator","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2016\/06\/excellent-a-fight-to-abolish-the-death-penalty-led-by-conservatives.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Excellent! A fight to abolish the death penalty led by conservatives","og_description":"Colby Coash can point to the moment his evolution in thinking about the death penalty began. It was Sept. 3, 1994, and Coash \u2014 now a conservative senator","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2016\/06\/excellent-a-fight-to-abolish-the-death-penalty-led-by-conservatives.html","og_site_name":"Catholic and Enjoying It!","article_published_time":"2016-06-04T13:37:17+00:00","author":"Mark Shea","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Mark Shea","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2016\/06\/excellent-a-fight-to-abolish-the-death-penalty-led-by-conservatives.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2016\/06\/excellent-a-fight-to-abolish-the-death-penalty-led-by-conservatives.html","name":"Excellent! A fight to abolish the death penalty led by conservatives","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-06-04T13:37:17+00:00","dateModified":"2016-06-04T13:37:17+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#\/schema\/person\/c1a9ac1e557d3c626974fd6692818ad5"},"description":"Colby Coash can point to the moment his evolution in thinking about the death penalty began. It was Sept. 3, 1994, and Coash \u2014 now a conservative senator","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2016\/06\/excellent-a-fight-to-abolish-the-death-penalty-led-by-conservatives.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2016\/06\/excellent-a-fight-to-abolish-the-death-penalty-led-by-conservatives.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2016\/06\/excellent-a-fight-to-abolish-the-death-penalty-led-by-conservatives.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Excellent! A fight to abolish the death penalty led by conservatives"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/","name":"Catholic and Enjoying It!","description":"Mark Shea's Blog: So That No Thought of Mine, No Matter How Stupid, Should Ever Go Unpublished Again!","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#\/schema\/person\/c1a9ac1e557d3c626974fd6692818ad5","name":"Mark Shea","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f287911f45adc932ad24ddbae3597ed5?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f287911f45adc932ad24ddbae3597ed5?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Mark Shea"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/author\/markshea"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95642\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}