Are we Still Interested in the Morbid?

On June 11, 2001, Timothy McVeigh, better known to some as The Oklahoma Bomber, was put to death by lethal injection and many in the western world rejoiced.

In the days immediately prior to his execution the media was full of the details of this upcoming event.  Indeed in the first week of April that year, the U.S. Government announced that the Federal Government would provide - and pay for - closed circuit television of the execution. 

I have never been and never will be in favour of the death penalty in any shape or form but the announcement that an execution would be televised to the world totally shocked me at the time.  Following that announcement, the Chairman of Entertainment Network Inc., in Florida announced that within an hour of the execution he would have the film all over the internet.   Not a word of protest or comment of any kind came from anywhere - let alone the many church leaders - until on  April 19th the then Presiding Bishop of the Episcopl Church, Bishop Frank Griswold, issued a strong statement protesting the Attorney General's announcement.  If my memory serves me well it was not until two weeks before the execution that the Attorney General withdrew the order to have the execution televised.

On Saturday May 5th 2001, the Honolulu Star Bulletin published an article I wrote (for which I got some flack from some church authorities, I might add) querying the lack of voices of protest - especially from political and church leaders  and asking had we become so accustomed to violence and hate, that watching an execution on television was now just a matter of entertainment and daily life.   It reminded me then of the description of the crucifixion of Jesus as described in St. Luke Ch. 23 v.35  where it says: "The people stood by and the rulers jeered........", and I wondered then if we had become a society just like that.

That was then - 2001.  Now is now - 2010, and I am happy to believe much progress has taken place on this subject and the death penalty is being done away with in many states in the US and in other countries around the world.

However, as I write this a man by the name of Ronnie Lee Gardner is sitting in the condemned cell in Utah awaiting execution by firing squad in a few hours from now.  All appeals and stays of execution have expired.  Mr Gardner  was convicted of fatally shooting a lawyer in a courthouse in 1985. The fact that he is to die by firing squad has aroused the attention of the media in many countries as it will be the first such execution in the United States for quite some time.

Why am I writing this?  Because I was hoping that our love of morbid curiosity when it comes to such things was fading since Mr. McVeigh was executed.  Yet just today CNN has gone to great lengths to show again and again graphic descriptions of the execution chamber, and even a demonstration of how it will be carried out.  It showed the very rifles to be used and the bullets as well, where the shooters will be standing, together with the target paper which will be pinned to Mr. Gardner's chest over his heart, so those shooting will hit the target.  For good measure we were also given a fairly graphic description of what will happen to the heart when it is hit.

Is all this necessary? Do people really want to know all these details?  If it is something that people want, then there definitely is something wrong with society.  I wonder if anyone else apart from me has written to CNN protesting these graphic descriptions.  I was happy to see that the Peace with Justice Commission of the Diocese of Utah has raised its voice on the matter of the execution and the ballyhoo that surrounds it. 

Have any other church or political leaders spoken out?  Or in this election year in the US, are people afraid to speak out on what they fear might be an unpopular subject?