(This weblog creates, for us all, a chance to meet at the interaction of Life and the New Spirituality. It is written by the author of Conversations with God, the worldwide best-selling series of books. The “New Spirituality” is defined by the author as “a new way to experience our natural impulse toward the Divine, which does not make others wrong for the way in which they are doing it.”)
HIGHLIGHTS OF TODAY’S BLOG…
* Al Sharpton hits the nail on the head
* The enormous crime against Genarlow Wilson
* A stubborn attorney general who would ruin a man’s life
* What’s good for the goose…
I think Al Sharpton has it right. I think he understands things. I mean, I don’t want to imply that I always agree with him, but I sure do in this case.
Al Sharpton is, of course, the well known and always outspoken civil rights leader from New York. Last week he made a striking statement about the “Scooter” Libby commutation by President Bush. He brought it up, however, in a most unusual context…one that drove his point home with tremendous power.
Sharpton was in Douglasville, Georgia last Thursday, and he had a few choice words to say there about three men: Thurbert E. Baker, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, and Genarlow Wilson.
What he said raised eyebrows…
Let’s go back and bring you some background first.
Genarlow Wilson is the young man, now 21, who was convicted of aggravated child molestation for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17. Under the state law in effect at the time, Wilson received a mandatory 10-year sentence — of which he has already served more than two years.
There was no question at trial as to the willingness of the girl to join the young man in this act. That wasn’t the issue. The issue was the girl’s age. These were, in fact, two teenagers experiencing their eager and budding sexuality. Inappropriately? Some would say yes. To the degree that ten years in prison was required for the State to feel it had sufficiently punished the boy? Most would say no.
This makes total sense to me. In fact, in my world there would be no punishment at all. There would be consequences. And those consequences would include mandatory sex education classes, so that the young people involved could be made completely aware of all of the issues surrounding sexual responsibility. Also, community service.
Among the services I would require the young people to perform: leading panel discussions and the participating in other special programs aimed at their contemporaries, examining teenage sexuality and age-appropriate ways to experience and explore it.
I certainly wouldn’t throw a 17-year-old boy in prison for 10 years for a 10-minute sexual experience with a 15-year-old girl who willingly participated. Neither, from now on, will the State of Georgia. Unfortunately, its new law is not retroactive. It did nothing for Genarlow Wilson.
So last month a Georgia state judge did. The judge declared that Wilson’s sentence amounted to “cruel and unusual punishment,” pounded a gavel and and voided it on constitutional grounds. Wilson’s jail term was reduced to one year and his name was ordered removed from the state’s Sex Offender registry, where it had been placed as a requirement of the old law. Everyone rejoiced. A bad situation was corrected.
This all makes total sense to me. But not to Georgia Attorney General Thurbert E. Baker. He immediately announced that he would appeal the decision, arguing that the judge did not have the authority “to reduce or modify the judgment of the trial court.” Because of what Baker did, Wilson has had to remain behind bars while his lawyers seek the approval of the state Supreme Court to allow his release on bond.
Okay, now we get back to Al Sharpton. Last Thursday the civil rights leader called Wilson’s sentence “wicked, punitive, immoral and illegal.” But he didn’t stop there. Said Sharpton:
“If this young man’s name was Scooter Wilson, he wouldn’t be in jail. If he had a different complexion and a different connection, we’d be having a Welcome Home party.
“But since he didn’t have anybody in the Oval Office to deal with excessive sentencing for him, he got hundreds in the streets that will speak on his behalf.”
Sharpton referred to the street rally last week at which he spoke, which drew hundreds of people clamoring for young Mr. Wilson — who, I remind you, has already served more than two years for this teenage sexual encounter — to be released on bond.
If our society was built around the principles of the New Spirituality, we would not be discussing the jail terms of either Mr. Wilson or Mr. Libby. Rather, we would be following the model discussed yesterday in this space and embraced by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. (See yesterday’s posting here.)
Conversations with God makes it very clear that forgiveness is not required in the Kingdom of God. At the level at which most of humanity operates, such an idea would be at this time unworkable. Yet the process and the function of “forgiveness” might be better understood and more quickly implemented if we all rearranged our thinking around this experience.
I was speaking on the subject the other day in St. Petersburg, Florida and someone asked me to give my definition of forgiveness. Spontaneously and without thinking about it for even a moment I found myself saying, “Forgiveness is pretending that the other person is you.”
There was an immediate “oooh” from the audience, which then fell into stunned silence. I didn’t have much to say, either. I realized that what had emerged from my mouth was a very special piece of information. I had never said that before. I had never even thought about it in that way. But I knew, as soon as I heard myself say it, that it was profoundly and intuitively and magnificently correct.
If we all imagined that the other person was us we would have completely different ideas as to how that person should be treated following the committing of an offense.
We will discuss more of this in the days and weeks ahead. For now, let “Scooter” Libby go. Let him go. He lied. He obstructed justice. He also served his country in the best way he knew how in other ways, and for many, many years. It is not necessary to destroy a man by throwing him in jail for 30 months for deliberately saying that he “forgot” the details that he was asked to give to a grand jury when asked about a sequence of events in which he was not even accused of participating. Everyone “got” that he did not leak anything to anyone, least of all Valerie Plame’s identity to the media. Why, then, would we expect him to “leak” the identities of those who did do this to a Grand Jury?
They wanted him to “squeal” on his associates, and even on the Vice President, and he simply would not do that. I don’t agree with a thing that his associates and the Vice President may have done here. That is not the point. The point is, I understand Scooter Libby’s response, reaction, and decision perfectly. He may have known that the vice president (and, presumably, several others) allegedly did something that was, if it is true, in human terms wrong, reprehensible, and deserving of “punishment.” That still doesn’t stop me from understanding why Libby’s memory became conveniently short. Of course it did. Whose would not? Who among us has not done the same thing in our own life situations where “telling” on our friends would have caused them great harm? Who among us can throw the first stone?
This does not make it right. Not one bit. It does make it understandable. (Conversations with God, by the way, says that “right” and “wrong” do not exist. They are figments of our imagination, and our definition of them changes from time to time, place to place, and circumstance to circumstance.)
Let me give you my definition of morality. “Morality” is the desire to force other people to act as we have not.
Amen.
(More in upcoming days and weeks as we look at the larger question of how we want to recreate our society and our world through the embracing of the New Spirituality.)
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