CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

In 1846, the state of Michigan was the very first to abolish Capital

Punishment. Now, in 1999, the question of reestablishing Capital

Punishment has risen up through a case brought on by the Jenny Jones

show. In this case, an innocent homosexual man had to die, because the straight man, to whom he proclaimed his love, couldn t handle the fact that a gay man was in love with him. In effect to this, the Michigan house is debating if they should put Capital Punishment on the November 2000 voting ballet. As read in the lead editorial of the

Kalamazoo Gazette, they strongly urged Michigan to continue in being

the first state to thoroughly abolish Capital Punishment, and to lead all the other states in our mission, the mission to abolish all sorts of Capital Punishments. However, as a young Christian woman I must strongly disagree with the above statement made by the Kalamazoo Gazette. Being a Christian, I must always go back to the Bible to find the answers to the many questions I have in life, and that is exactly what I did when I was asked to write this very essay. The first piece of scripture I found supporting Capital Punishment was in Genisis 9:5-6. In this little piece of scripture it says, and from each man to, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed for in the image of God has God made man. I belive that this states that God, in the Old Testament, believed Capital Punishment was the correct way of punishing a person who killed, and I must agree. It has always been my opinion that a person who takes anothers life, shouldn t be allowed to live their lives to the fullest. Why should they be allowed to be happy, have a family, and live after they have stolen that from another? I know that many would object to this since it is in the Old Testament, and that God sent Jesus to revise his laws. That is why I choose the following piece of scripture to back my opinion up. It says in Romans 13:1-4 that the authorities that exist have been established by God, consequently he who rebels against them is rebelling against what God has instituted, and

those who do so will bring judgement on themselves. For rulers hold

no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you

want to be free from fear of the one in autority? Then do what is right, and he will commend you. For he is God s servant to do you good, but if you do wrong be afraid for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God s servant an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. To me, this reinstates exactley what the passage in Genesis says, and what I have always believed to be right. However,the only crimes I believe this is for, are the capital crimes in our nation today. People need to learn that they can t get away with everything that they do, and that there will always be some major form of punishment awaiting their evil deeds. Here is just some more food

for thought to whomever this may concern. My Civic s techer Mr.

Bailey told me that Canada, the nation just next to us, has Capital

Punsihment, and that their crime rate is less than half of what ours is without Capital Punishment. This lead s me to believe that Capital

Punishment would establish some fear into those who have had

thoughts of killing another, and would make our government less

tolerant to those kinds of crimes. We can t let people strike fear

into a community, and let them get away with it. Their has to be

some point in time where we draw the line to insure some sense of

security for the American people of today, and the future. All in all, I think that I have stated my opinion very well, and would hope to maybe convince some of the people who believe Capital Punishment

to be wrong.