Update on Judge Wendell Gfiffen of Little Rock: Judge Griffen Files Suit vs. Arkansas Supreme Court for Violating His Religious Liberty

In May, I told you of a move to impeach Arkansas judge (and my friend) Wendell Griffen after he took part in a public demonstration against the death penalty organized on Good Friday by the church he pastors in Little Rock, New Millennium Baptist church. In response to his involvement in this protest, the Arkansas Supreme Court and Arkansas Attorney General restricted the kinds of cases at which Judge Griffen might preside, claiming that he was too biased to hear some cases, such as ones in which the death penalty might be an appropriate sentence in their view.

Move to Impeach Judge Wendell Griffen: "Latest Effort to Punish a Judge, a Black Judge . . . with Whom the White Power Structure in Arkansas Disagrees"

I thought I'd update you today on what's happening with my friend Judge (and Reverend) Wendell Griffen right now. As his recent Democracy Now! interview with Amy Goodman and Juan González reports, a move is afoot to have him impeached as a member of the Arkansas judiciary due to his outspoken opposition — as a Christian pastor — to the death penalty. On Good Friday, he took part in a protest against the death penalty organized by the church he pastors, New Millennium Baptist church in Little Rock, and the impeachment proceedings are due to his participation in that protest.

White Christian Right "Over the Moon" About Trump Presidency: News Worth Noting Today

#Christian pic.twitter.com/3ZA6pRFGJS

— Ani Sangye (@SangyeH) April 26, 2017

Some "in the news" items I've noticed in the last day or so, which have to do with matters we often discuss here, and to which I want to draw your attention:

Tipping Over into Something "So Dark, So Real, So Evil That There Was Really No Precedent for It in Terms of Its All-Encompassing Possibilities for Death"

From the news and news commentary in the past day or so: read these snippets as a unified narrative, and the question arises, If I had to write a plot description for this narrative, what would that plot description say? What might it say about the role religion is playing in tipping the United States over into unimagined possibilities of death, destruction, and violence at this point in history? How does a "pro-life" Christianity end up dealing death, and doing so proudly and defiantly? 

Arkansas Killing Spree Now Underway, as "Pro-Life" White Christians Applaud

My state of Arkansas did move ahead to execute a man named Ledell Lee last night. Our state Supreme Court cleared the way for this execution and for what Ed Pilkington and Jacob Rosenberg rightly call a "killing spree" on which the state has now entered under the leadership of its current Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson, its Republican Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, and its Republican-extremist legislature dominated by "pro-life" white evangelicals — who also predominate on the state's Supreme Court.

Remembering Mario Cuomo: Issue That Above All Others Defines His Legacy Was Opposition to Death Penalty

John Nichols's eulogy for Mario Cuomo at The Nation is the best I've yet read. I like how Nichols gets that Cuomo's political vision was deeply informed by a Catholic vision of the common good on which Cuomo continued to insist even as his political party, at a national level and under several popular Democratic presidents, moved decisively to the "center" (that is, to the right) and endorsed neoliberal socioeconomic ideas that left working- and even middle-class Americans out in the cold.

Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: "I Wonder What Justice Scalia Has to Say Now"

Because isn't he not only a Catholic, but one who frequently claims that his Catholic values infuse everything he does as a Supreme Court justice — and who has argued that Christian values must infuse capitalistic societies if those societies are to succeed? Since capitalism is more Christian than socialism — or so he claims . . . . 

A Reader Writes: "I Wonder WHY the Murder Rate Is Higher in States That Allow Execution?"

Yesterday, in response to my posting about the botched (and barbaric) execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma several days ago, a_leah asked, "I'm opposed to capital punishment anyway, but I wonder WHY the murder rate is higher in states that allow execution?" I think that's a good question, one well worth pursuing: why is it that the murder rate is frequently higher in the U.S. in states that practice capital punishment, while it's lower in states that outlaw capital punishment? As it's lower in many nations that have abolished capital punishment, while higher in many nations that still permit the death penalty . . . ?

Brief Takes from Week's News: Oklahoma and "The Very Definition of Cruel and Unusual Punishment"

Brief takes from commentary in the past several days on the horrifying botched execution in Oklahoma:

Republican Party and the South: Then-and-Now, An Addendum

In what I posted earlier today, I also intended to note Dr. Wilson Bachelor's view of the death penalty.  That detail somehow got away from me when I finalized the posting, and so here is this small addendum:

The News That's Fit to Tell: End-of-Week List

From a week of news-reading in which I haven't felt sufficient energy to comment on these stories as carefully as I might have wished: here's a set of recent stories/commentary (about widely scattered matters) that have caught my attention, and may interest readers:

Maureen Dowd on Scalia (and U.S. Catholic Bishops) and Cooperation in Evil

Justice Scalia and Cardinal Wuerl of D.C., Red Mass, 2008

Maureen Dowd writes about Supreme Court justice Scalia's defense of capital punishment in a speech he delivered recently at Duquesne University, and about the double standard the U.S. Catholic bishops employ in promoting Catholic moral values in the public square:

In Catholic News: Scalia Talks Moral Truths, Benedict Calls German Church to Poverty

In Catholic news: Supreme Court justice (and right-wing Catholic) Antonin Scalia has made the news several times the past week, by addressing issues including

1. discrimination against gays on Catholic campuses (he's for it)

2. abolition of the death penalty (against).

U.S. Catholic Theologians Speak Out vs. Death Penalty

Important news to note this week: a group of Catholic theologians (the initial number was around 150, but the list of signatories is said to be growing daily) have issued a call for the eradication of the death penalty in the U.S.  The theologians' statement is at the Catholic Moral Theology blog.