Who would Jesus shoot?
There really isn’t that much difference between Scott Roeder and Abdulhakim Muhammid. Roeder walked into a church in Kansas and shot a man dead. Muhammid took the same action in a US military recruiting center in a strip mall in Arkansas.
There is, however, a drastic difference in how the stories since their actions are unfolding. The difference is fully explained by one single detail of their actions – Muhammid shot Private William Long, an American serviceman. Roeder shot Dr. George Tiller, a licensed OB/GYN doctor.
That’s really all there is to it. Both men acted on political and religious convictions. Muhammid, an American who had converted to Islam while incarcerated in Yemen, killed William Long because he had chosen to become a professional soldier. He said there was nothing personal about the attack, he just wanted to strike back at the American military and public conscience. Roeder, who had converted to radical Christianity when he couldn’t pay his bills, shot George Tiller because he had chosen to operate a women’s health clinic that performed abortions.
I can’t find any example of someone supporting what Muhammid did. In fact, the judge in his case recently issued a gag order to stop public speculation about the mental health of the man. Apparently, we don’t want to hear about any sort of Manchurian Candidate getting out of a Yemeni prison and turning against the good old US Army.
But there are plenty of examples of people who praise Roeder. Even some of them who denounce his actions explain that they aren’t particularly troubled by his death. Some even say that Roeder was, in effect, an agent of God. As if God, who (if one believes in an omnipotent and interventionary God) could simply have had Tiller die in his sleep, needed to pick on a poor deranged lunatic to do His work.
The differences between the two follow-up stories are stark. Susan Jacoby notes:
What is far more disturbing is that there were almost no prominent Kansas politicians at the funeral (including Kathleen Sibelius, the pro-choice former Kansas governor who is now Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Obama administration). The absence of politicians, including many who are pro-choice, speaks volumes about the degree to which abortion, and doctors who provide abortion services, have been demonized in this country. In this climate, do you think that there is any real possibility of pro-choice and anti-choice forces finding the “common ground” to which President Obama referred in his commencement speech at Notre Dame?
Gov. Mike Beebe attended the service. Before the proceedings began, Beebe expressed shock that someone would target the American military so far from the battlefield.
I want to make clear that I think Beebe did the right thing. He honored someone who had staked out a lifetime of service to others and was slain for it. But Tiller had also staked out a lifetime of service. And, while his death did not go unnoticed, it is telling that no politician chose to attend and simply make the emphatic statement by their presence that, “This is wrong!”
Roeder will be charged with murder, and possibly related gun charges. He will be defended as being legally insane. Muhammid, too, will likely be defended as legally insane, but there is a possibility that he will face federal charges related to terrorism. But while the FBI is working the Muhammid case, there’s no indication that the same is happening with Roeder. So, while it remains to be seen if Muhammid will face federal charges – terrorism charges – it is unlikely that Roeder will do so.
It is natural to ask what kind of person would do this – but the answer is that there are litterally millions of people around the world who can be convinced of the rightness of doing these sorts of things. The truth is that, until political leaders denounce such things by their actions as they do by their words, this will continue. Maybe not today. Maybe not soon. But the silent distancing of victims from those who can still speak for them only encourages those troubled souls who would contemplate such actions.
Technorati Tags: Scott Roeder, Abdulhakim Muhammid
Sphere: Related Content
Where I Blog
NJ News
National News