The Supreme Court ruled yesterday (Monday, Feb 28) in a tight decision (5-4), it is unconstitutional to exercise capital punishment for minors. In commenting for the majority Justice Kennedy stated the most Americans consider people under the age of 18 too young and impressionable to make decisions on their own, thus capital punishment would violate the constitutional prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishment.” The decision has immediate consequences for around 70 minors currently on death row around the country.
I wonder what kind of message that our high court is sending the youth of our country. What will be the results of telling minors that they will not be held to the rule of law? Now, I understand that there will still be other consequences should a teenager break the law. But in reality, does not this ruling, unintentional as it may be, communicate a certain free reign for our youth? Is that really a healthy message to be sending America’s teenagers, who already have little sense of self control and personal responsibility? Our culture goes out of its way to invent excuses for inappropriate, even unlawful, behavior. “Newly discovered” behavioral disorder are introduced so fast, publications cannot keep up with them, let alone parents, pastors, teachers or counselors who accept the responsibility to guide the development of these youth. Incidentally, these disorders are “diagnosed” only by their presented symptoms and have no physiological characteristics. They simply become excuses that lead to hopeless despair. Consider two ways to approach a consistently disobedient child.
One: Tell him he has a disorder called Attention Deficit – Hyperactivity Disorder. Give him a high dose of Ritalin and tell him to go on with his routine.
Two: Define his disobedience as rebellion. Explain the consequences of that rebellion. Help him establish a healthy routine of increasing his attention span, controlling his mind, which will enable him to control his actions, and developing a respect for the various authority figures in his life. When the rebellion persists, the consequences are graciously, but consistently doled out.
Which situation will have the better long term effect? Of course, that may actually be part of the problem. We do not want to do the hard work it takes to create a long term fix. We want quick obedience, slavish actually. We want to go about our business and make our life easy. We do not take time to invest in the life of others (not even our own children) with the aim of long term emotional, physical, spiritual maturity.
God speaks to this type of catering to the flesh and short term, quick fixes that hide the heart issues that drive choices. Galatians 6.7,8: “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.”
Let us be about the business in our lives and in the lives that we have the opportunity to shape, of sowing the those things which are eternal. There will be consequences for choices, let us not make light of these, but hold ourselves and other to the high standards of the rule of law, and more importantly, the Law of God.
Thanks to our Supreme Court, today we have it even harder to explain that “Yes! There are consequences to your actions!”
Remember... we must examine the news of the day in light a biblical worldview.
Grace to You!
1 comment:
The current five-member oligarchy, based on "evolving standards of decency", has effectively overruled STANFORD v. KENTUCKY, a 1989 decision via which the Court refused to hold that executing criminals who were juveniles at the time of offense is
"cruel or unusual punishment" (prohibited by the Eighth Amendment). Justice Kennedy, writing for the oligarchy, considers juveniles to be, as
mentally retarded criminals have been deemed to be, "categorically less culpable than the average criminal". He also noted that adolescence is marked by "impetuousness and recklessness"
[so why not "license" such?!], but it is his concern that "the United States now stands alone in a world that has turned its face against the juvenile death penalty" that promted Justice Antonin Scalia to write, in dissent, that the majority opinion consisted only of
"the subjective views of five members of this court and like-minded foreigners". Scalia for Chief Justice!
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