As much as I hate to have to throw my two bits out into the public arena again, here I am taking an unpopular position on a controversial issue.

This time it is capital punishment. I want to be counted as one who is not afraid to say I don’t believe in killing to teach that killing is wrong. Just as I stated in the 1960s that I strongly opposed the segregation of the “old South,” or in March 2003 that I objected to the preemptive strike on Iraq, or later that I opposed the United States engaging in the horrible practice of torture, I choose today to oppose the execution of Dale Leo Bishop.

I state these positions so that I can at least live with my own conscious. My belief in the dignity of all human life demands that I oppose this execution that occurred Wednesday evening.

Dale Bishop should be kept in prison for life with no chance of parole. What he did was horrible and barbaric.

I continue to offer my prayers for the families of the victims of such violent killings.

Today my prayers are for the family of Marcus Gentry who was killed by Jessie Johnson while Bishop served as an accessory. I know the Gentry family’s suffering will never cease, not even with the death of Bishop.

I could write a long letter about how the death penalty has been unsuccessful in stopping such brutal murders, or how it has been disproportionately and unfairly administered to the poor, has scarred the name of our country among civilized countries of the world, or how it has been administered to innocent people and mentally ill persons.

I will shorten my feelings by sharing that I personally object to capital punishment based on my Christian teaching of loving my enemy.

By killing to teach killing is wrong I too become, as a citizen of the State of Mississippi, a killer. I cannot rationally stand by and witnesses this without objecting.

It is not what Bishop did, but what we become when we respond by carefully executing another human being.