Wyoming lawmakers recently held a vote on whether to officially repeal the death penalty, marking a seminal moment in the debate over capital punishment in the state. Initially, things were looking good for supporters of the repeal, as the bill easily passed in the State House. But then it went to the State Senate, where it was defeated by a vote of 18-12.
Among those voting "no" was Sen. Lynn Hutchings, who defended her decision to keep the death penalty in place by invoking one of the most famous people ever to die by it: Jesus.
"The greatest man who ever lived died via the death penalty for you and me," she said. "I'm grateful to him for our future hope because of this. Governments were instituted to execute justice. If it wasn't for Jesus dying via the death penalty, we would all have no hope."
Would Jesus Support Capital Punishment?
But Hutchings' message (a charitable reading of it, anyway) is slightly different. She argues that Jesus suffered and died for the greater good of humanity, and that none of that would have been possible without the death penalty.
However, does that mean capital punishment is de facto a good policy? Just because one famous martyr died 2,000 years ago, does that really excuse the fact that countless numbers of people (some of them innocent) have faced the same dismal fate? That seems like shaky ground to build an argument on.
No Stranger to Hot Water
Interestingly, her death penalty
Hutchings reportedly told a group of high school students (who happened to be members of the Gay-Straight Alliance) that being gay puts you on a slippery slope toward sexual activity with kids or animals.
"If my sexual orientation was to have sex with all of the men in there and I had sex with all of the women in there and then they brought their children and I had sex with all of them and then brought their dogs in and I had sex with them, should I be protected for my sexual orientation?" Hutchings asked.
These comments, as one might imagine,
54 comments
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Secretary3rd
Look what is on death row before you say anything about putting animals to death. There are some very foul creatures who deserve to be hung until dead. It goes beyond religion. Would anyone stop the hanging of ISIL members from the Middle East just because you want them to be save on religion grounds. How about the guards at the death camps of the NAZI give them mercy not by any long shot. While this lawmaker is way off base with her strange beliefs she is right that keep paying to keep a nasty person in jail is a waste of her and tax payers money. If she want to engage in strange sex practices then again it is the voters who must decide if they want her in public office. Her words will haunt her until she is rotting in her grave and years to come.
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Bill Fox
Jesus is the author of capital punishment. The Word was the God in the Garden of Eden that drove out Adam and Eve before they could eat of the tree of life. The Word announced, "the wages of sin is death".
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Rev. Dr. Gordon Francis Blaney Jr.
Your theological interpretation is correct and incorrect. If you’re Jewish, then abiding by the Old Testament or Old Covenant is essential to life eternal. However, if you’re Christian, then it becomes quite complex, difficult, and hard to ascertain how to utilize the contents of what came before the New Testament or New Covenant. John 3:16 is clear that eternal life is through Jesus. John 8 is clear that Jesus doesn’t condone putting someone to death. How do we reconcile this clear deviation from the time of Moses? In the time of Moses the people atoned for their sins through acts of prescribed attrition, but Jesus has now become the lamb.
If we shall have capital punishment and make justification through utilizing dogma from only the Old Testament or Old Covenant, then be prepared to die for the following:
The acts of incest, bearing false witness on a capital charge, adultery, idolatry, bestiality, human sacrifice to pagan gods, cursing a parent, fortune-telling, and other sins.
I think I much prefer to suggest to Christians to love thy neighbor as thyself, to try to be holy as He is holy, and to accept Jesus as their lamb.
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Richard Nigh
The story goes that Jesus was given the death penalty although he committed no crime. Hutchings is saying the opposite. If it was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for us.
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A druid
Senator Hutchings is the elected representative of the people of Wyoming. She has not been recalled and therefore probably reflects the opinions of her constituents. One might wonder if the earth is still flat in Wyoming.
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John Owens
One also might wonder why people who pretend to be educated keep mentioning flat earth every time they disagree with someone. Hmmm.... I wonder...
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AKConiferious
Is blasphemy a death-sentence crime in Wyoming?
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YVONNE
Do No Harm In Thought, Word, Or Deed. This is the edict and if one lives otherwise the consequences will come surely and not by Man.
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David Edmond
God gave his only begotten Son to die for everyone's sin. We are saved by his blood How can the death penalty save anyone. Her assertion that Jesus would have wanted it is contrary to His belief. Those who were persecuted on his behalf did so because they followed his teachings (the truth) so what she is saying makes no sense.
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angel
God supported the slaughter of tribes of people in order for Moses and "his people" could move in and take over. The entire bible and your doctrine teaches punishment of the wicked. Jesus is the son of God and supports everything God say's and does. So it is safe to assume that yes, Jesus, would indeed , support the death penalty!
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Tom
Yes, let's repeal the death penalty so we can feed and house murderers and rapists for the rest of their lives. Better yet, let them free to roam the streets. Who cares why she voted to keep the death penalty, it should have never been up for debate to begin with. Fry all those kiddie ticklers!
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Ren R
So you prefer to have a justice system like that in Saudi Arabia and China rather than that of every other industrialized nation in the "Western World". How utterly enlightened of you. NOT.
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Rev. Dr. Gordon Francis Blaney Jr.
The solution is simple. Have the condemned pay their own way through prison through honest and hard work, and refusal will mean exile to a habitual but inhospitable island where they must hunt, gather, and build huts or other shelter to survive. Either way, they would work to live.
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Minister Post
The bible clearly says what happens when you go against the word of God. They may not believe in Jesus Christ, but he believes in them. The gate is wide that leads to destruction. The gate is very narrow for the rightous. Everyone has free will to chose. But will it be the right choice. That's what matters in the end game.
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Frank Villari
Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's...
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Rev Marti
The death penalty should never be decided on a religious platform, but rather on the will of the people. The Bible respected the law of the land, So if that is the case, it is determined by the people. I think a better punishment is to allow someone to sit and contemplate their shortcomings than to relieve them from incarceration.While no New Testament passage expressly mandates capital punishment, several imply its appropriateness. For example, in Romans 13:1-7 Paul calls his readers to submit to the authority of civil government, reminding them that "if you do wrong, be afraid, for he [the authority] does not bear the sword for nothing." In its ultimate use, the word sword implies execution.
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William Waugh
Ok. This woman's argument is bogus but the result is not. I know, you dont want to hear it but the religious concept of "sins of the fathers" or original sin is actually genetic. Genes rewrite themselves during each lifetime. And, "sin" gets entrained in the psyche that way. .....so if the crime warrents it then the death penalty should not be off the table because it ends that unfortunate DNA script.
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Michael Montgomery
Original sin, a concept, is somehow incorporated into deoxyribonucleic acid. Do tell. Please explain this new finding. My father was a PhD of biology and I was reading on a college level in sixth grade, so you can use big words to explain this.
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G Dobson
William - I do not believe this to be the case. Do you have any citations or studies to back this claim? Please provide.
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Carla Robinson
Are you a researcher? You have done genome research and found the sin code? Wow. How have I not yet heard of your breakthrough, how have you not yet been nominated for a Nobel? SMH.
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William Waugh
Ok. 1: Im a minister and try not to lie. 2: i am disabled and not a fluent typist. So, use your high functioning brain to find your own citations. It only takes a few keywords. Read about cell memory and genetic impact on behaviour 10 or more generations back. To the human awareness and comprehension (hope not too big a word) of earths population at the time the bible and others was written, that translates to sins of the father or original sin. Just open up that little piece of your brain that the Neanderthals did not posess much of and ((Imagine! )) if we had stuck with science originally and not developed religion as the dominant theory of everything. Earth likely would not have such a depressing history.
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G Dobson
William - I too am a ULC minister. I too try not to lie. I believe we would indeed have a much better world if the concept of "Do What's Right" were the only "religion" ever developed by humans. The "superiority" of one group of us over another group of us is utter insanity, IMO. Studies of the genome to support such theories has been done for a very long time. The result is basically that many common factors within the DNA of "criminals" are also within the DNA of the public as a whole. There is no real merit to the supposed inheritance of one or more "crime genes" causing criminal behavior. Citations follow (from 1982 through Sep, 2016) -- all indicate environmental influences much more contributory than genetic make-up -- unless you are speaking of true mental illness which can be treated.
"...chronic criminal behavior may be inherited, a California researcher reported today." - Jan, 1982; https://aic.gov.au/publications/tandi/tandi263 - Sep, 2003; on twins adopted to separate families "...found that although genetic background has a strong influence on whether an individual will engage in antisocial behaviour, the influence of environmental factors is even stronger."; https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29760212 - Oct, 2014; "A deficiency of the enzyme this controls could result in "dopamine hyperactivity" especially when an individual drinks alcohol or takes drugs such as amphetamines, said Prof Tiihonen. The majority of all individuals who commit severe violent crime in Finland do so under the influence of alcohol or drugs."; https://www.medicaldaily.com/are-genetics-responsible-criminal-behavior-many-prisoners-share-gene-linked-397741 - Sep, 2016; "The results of this study need to be interpreted carefully,” the researchers said. “The findings of this study cannot be implemented for any prediction purposes, or brought into courthouses to be given any legal weight."
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G Dobson
So again, we have elected people who can't tell the difference between their oath to uphold the Constitution and their own personal beliefs. We really need to elect better representatives; some who can represent all of us, not only the most vocal group. The U.S. is not a theocracy.
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Tom B
Gail...well said...Peace...Tom
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chiefhall
Spot-on!
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cbcuff
...and yes people should not be held captive by her absurd beliefs, and waiting for her to resign, she should be removed from office! Her comment as quoted in this article goes far beyond a simple opinion, or good ole Wyomin' ignorance. It is an expression of her bigotry.
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Kirk
She seems to be a person that likes attention and uses extreme examples to make her point. She’s not actually advocating this behavior, she’s advocating a conservative status quo. What would Jesus do you ask? He didn’t tell people not to consume his body and blood during communion. Her examples are less extreme than that.
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Dr pepper
So she supports the death penalty because Jesus was crucified....Damn she stupid as hell.
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Martha Knight
What a mindless way to use scripture! What a total perversion of the gospel! Hutchings is recommending that followers of Jesus and his teachings imitate the Romans who occupied the land of the Jews and condemned and executed Jesus for sedition after Jewish crowds had proclaimed him King. She missed the part where he reprimanded Peter for wounding one of the soldiers sent to arrest Jesus, and the part where Jesus, spending the night at Gethsemane, had only to walk down the other side of the hill to be out of the jurisdiction of the people who would come to arrest him.
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Phil Ryan
Since it is condoned in the Bible, I wonder whether she feels that slavery is justified too? Perhaps she feels that adulterers should be stoned to death as well? Her remarks just go to show that she is not fit for public office and brings it into disrepute.
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Rev J
You missed the part that Jesus did not want Peter or his followers interfering with God's plan. That Jesus was stopping Peter or his disciples from making the train jump the track.
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JOLENE MARCELLA TRAVIS
Death Penalty for ANY crime. Let us with no criminal ties live in peace. I live in Wyoming and it is not a woman friendly or gay friendly state. I hate it here. Lucky for me I wasn't born here.
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ET
I was born there, and admit it has its faults, but there’s a lot of beauty too. However, I realize that as a white, straight male, I’ve had the advantages and haven’t walked in your moccasins. I hope you find peace and better times and spaces as you find your way on life’s path.
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Rev. Dr. Gordon Francis Blaney Jr.
Jesus made a choice to die for our sins. He didn’t want to die as man, but recognized as the Son of God that He needed to complete the will of His Father. It is said that judgement is reserved for God alone. There’s no biblical passage in the New Testament to support the death penalty. The fact is that Jesus said: “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone”. News flash - No one could, because all have fallen short of the glory of God.
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angel
Not True...13 Obey the government, for God is the one who has put it there. There is no government anywhere that God has not placed in power. 2 So those who refuse to obey the laws of the land are refusing to obey God, and punishment will follow. 3 For the policeman does not frighten people who are doing right; but those doing evil will always fear him. So if you don’t want to be afraid, keep the laws and you will get along well." These ARE the laws of the government AND apparently, God put them in power to make the rules!
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Willie
Can please quote what passage in the bible you got that from? You kind of make up things that are incorrect! ??????
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Rev J
There is a death penalty in the Old Testament still in there. Jesus came but he did not remove or take out any of God's laws and commandments. Jesus clearly tells us that he did not come to change any of his father's laws. So they old testament laws stand.
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Willie
You seem to forget the old testament was for the Jewish people to live by Jaweh. Christians are supposed to live by the new testament what Jesus taught! ????
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Martha Knight
Jesus said he came to FULFILL the law. Every successive covenant in the Old Testament between God and humans was considered completed, carried out and replaced when the next was enacted. The Abrahamic Covenant was replaced by the Mosaic Covenant. The prophesied Messiah was to bring a new covenant (New Testament) which would replace the Mosaic Covenant. The Messiah (Christ) would fulfill the law on behalf of all humans. Christ stated the commandments of the New Covenant (Covenant of Grace) as just two: to love God with our very being, and to love our fellow humans unconditionally. There is no English word for the type of love that is, but often it has been summed up as truly wanting for others whatever is God's loving intention toward them would be. If we think about it, the two commandments of the Decalogue are covered by the two commandments. So far as the New Testament tells us, God is open to reconciliation with a human until death. Unconditional love for our fellow human would forbid cutting short his or her life and opportunity for repentance and reconciliation with God. To get a clear understanding of the successive covenants between God and humans, and of Blood Covenant (the basis of law in Bible times, and even now, what underlies many laws), I recommend the writings and recordings of Lucien Behar (Light on the Mountain Ministries).
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Ren R
The English word for the love you speak of is "charity" - the full definition isn't just about "giving to the needy". CS Lewis discusses this very point in his book "Mere Christianity".
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Martha Knight
Ren, thanks for the hat tip to CS Lewis and Mere Christianity. I revere both. "Charity" was a stab at translating the Greek word for the special kind of love we are to extend to our fellow humans. Or, it was a decent approximation at the time of those who worked on the King James Version. And back then people did use "thee-thou" in common speech. But now "charity" is used differently and we don't thee-thou. Many people have mistaken ideas about much of he New Testament and consign some of its timeless ideas to a remote and no longer relevant time, because of archaic wording they have heard over and over. Better we use a phrase that incorporates more of the meaning Paul was trying to convey to the Corinthians, and what Jesus taught, IMO. Yes, I know, there are still those who insist on the KJV, because "it was good enough for Paul". . .
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Katelynne Victoria Shouse
She's a worthless piece of garbage and deserves to be treated as such!
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Lori
I hear you. That's one wacky lady and there are plenty of them, men and women, out there. I'm not sure there is a cure for these folks.
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Rev J
Too bad there is no cure for you folks.
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JOLENE MARCELLA TRAVIS
Judge much?????
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ET
Amen, Jolene Marcella Travis. I was on your same page.
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Michael Montgomery
Thank you. Some here seem to forget the expressed purpose of this group. There are people here that truly wish to exercise their faith in Jesus, not just skirt the traditional and accepted religious ordinations in order to condone and aide relationships biblically condemned. In case some have forgotten, we live in a fallen world. Isaiah 50, Proverbs 14:12. No one here has the authority to stand in judgement of anyone. It would benefit all to assess their own lives by the life we are all called to live in the Holy Bible. Peace to all.
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Tom
I think she's charming, eccentric but charming.
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Rev J
Well spoken by a true satanist. She must have forgotten that Jesus told us we will know evil people by the fruit their bear. Her fruit is as rotten as they come. By the way Jesus never changed the original laws set down by God, his father. The death penalty is an approved Godly method in weeding our garden of the evil among us. Jesus admonishes us to be very certain before we use that death penalty prescribed by God. Hence our standard of Guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and we still get it wrong. The death penalty is still on the books with God.
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Willie
You must have talked to God lately? I remember I believe it mentioned a stoning in the bible to paraphrase, that they could only throw a stone if they were without guilt? Remember that? I wonder where your stories are coming from! ?????
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Thomas William Cornfield
Some people need professional help, pray with me that they will get it. Praise the Lord God Almighty Creator and Destroyer of everything in this Universe
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William Waugh
Destroyer of everything in the universe? You must have been reading some gnostic texts!
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JORGE TERAN
How come stupids become senators?
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Okay. So even assuming that Christ died. It also says he was innocent. So her position for using Christ to support the death penalty is the same as saying we need the death penalty to kill people who are innocent. Total misguided rubbish in the same manner as how the bj lee was once used to justify slavery in America. Next: the Christ never “died” as he modeled how we are NOT hunks of flesh by setting it down and then picking it back up. Yet do-called Christians still cling to their meat suit like that’s who they really are; as do most of the unfortunate souls who commit terrible acts and wind up being killed by a “death” penalty. Thus the difference between the Christ-heart recognition that there is no real death and the limitations of those who think they end when their meat suit stops is a HUGE difference. Again showing this misguided “leader” with unfounded logic that can dangerously lead more people astray.