ROBERTSON SEEKING ''RELIGIOUS EXEMPTION'' FROM DEATH PENALTY?

Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson wants "compassion" for a born-again Christian woman on Texas death row. He continues, though, his general support of capital punishment. Questions about gender, religious belief and the power of government all intersect in the case of Karla Faye Tucker...

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oes conversion to fundamentalist Christianity warrant a pardon if one is on death row? That is the question facing Texas Governor George W. Bush who is now the only hope that Karla Faye Tucker has if she is to avoid becoming another victim of the state's official execution machine next month.

    Today, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected what legal experts say is Tucker's final court appeal on her conviction for the June, 1983 pickaxe murder of one of two persons hacked to death during a Houston apartment burglary. . Her only remedy for avoiding death by lethal injection -- a fate she could meet as early as next month -- is a commutation of sentence by Governor Bush, son of the former President and a leading contender, say the pundits, for the 2000 White House contest. Bush Jr. is an avowed proponent of the death penalty, and a favorite of the Christian right wing.

Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson has been a vociferous advocate of capital punishment. He is now calling for commutation of the death sentence for a Texas woman who has become a born-again fundamentalist Christian. Should mercy, compassion and human rights be extended only to those who pass a religious litmus test?

    Of 48 females on death row in 16 states, seven are incarcerated in Texas. Only one woman, Velma Barfield of North Carolina, has been executed since 1977, and in the Lone Star State no female has been put to death by the government since 1863. Gregory Curtil, a writer with Texas Monthly magazine, observed in the October, 1997 issue of that publication that, "No matter how the laws read, executing a woman is an act that offends some deep value we have held in Texas... Our reluctance must be the most visible vestige of the belief that is after all, worse to hurt a women than to hurt a man, that somehow the whole point of civilization is to protect women."

    But the case of Karla Faye Tucker is a complex one; since her conviction, Tucker has become a born-again Christian and earned the sympathy and support of religious groups and leaders across the country, including Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson. Last weekend on the CBS news program "60 Minutes," Robertson claimed that Tucker was a "changed woman," and called upon Governor Bush to "let compassion reign" in her case and grant a commutation of sentence.

    Her case touches myriad themes including not only the morality of the state-sanctioned death penalty, but whether there exists a double-standard in applying it to women -- and even whether religious conversion can "change" a person and elicit what some might consider a special level of treatment. Would the conversion of a male inmate to born-again Christianity result in such support? Probably not. And would Tucker have the backing of Pat Robertson and the rest of the country's fundamentalist "faith based" community had she converted as fervently to, say, Islam, or Scientology, or Buddhism?

    Clearly, this may be a case of religious bias and discrimination, regardless of the morality of the death penalty itself.

    The death penalty, like high school football, is an institution in that state where no politicians in his or her right mind chooses to speak against. Former Governor Ann Richards, who often blasted the draconian social policies of religious conservatives, never took the step of commuting a death sentence during her administration. Neither has George W. Bush; and all he has said about the case of Karla Faye Tucker is that he will "apply the law equally."

   Bush, however, is a recipient of the organizational genius and largesse of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition. If the son of the former President wishes to follow in his father's footsteps, he must heed Robertson and acknowledge the latter's political clout and savvy in the year 2000 race and beyond.

    And Robertson has come out squarely and unequivocally in support of commuting the death sentence for Karla Faye Tucker.

    For feminists, secularists and human rights activists opposed to the death penalty, this is a problematic, if mixed blessing. A chaplain for the Texas State penal system told "60 Minutes" that while Ms. Tucker's conversion as a born-again Christian fundamentalist is genuine, so are the religious transformations which many men in the system have experienced. There has been little, if any, outcry from the Christian right to commute their sentences.

    Even more fundamental, though, is the question of whether or not newfound religious belief automatically constitutes a sensible and substantive litmus test for change and rehabilitation. Should a demonstration of religion belief, by either a man or women, be a criteria for commutation of sentence? Courts in two states have already ruled that participation in religion-based rehabilitation programs like Alcoholics Anonymous cannot be used as a condition for granting inmates parole. Should religious belief exempt one from execution? If so, does religious conversion apply to all faiths? And what about those inmates who might have no religious faiths; are they, therefore, judged incapable of the sort of rehabilitation and change Karla Faye Tucker is said to have experienced?

Cranking up the electric chair, pulling the trigger or -- in a more grotesque if benign form -- pressing the button to release a deadly chemical cocktail have been stock-in-trade solutions for religious right activists in addressing what they see as the ills of modern society..."

    Robertson remains a proponent of state sanctioned executive, of course, something that should dismay any human rights activists who look with disfavor on the death penalty. And he isn't clear whether his support for Tucker is due to her newfound born-again Christianity, or the fact that she is a female, or some unspoken combination of both.

    George W. Bush loses regardless of what fate he dispenses for Karla Faye. He could reap a prairie backlash for being the Texas governor "who executed a woman," or end up being branded as a pawn of Robertson's who played favorites, and ignores pleas from the dozens of males now on Texas death row who have "found" Jesus, Allah and other forms of salvation. He risks losing the support of the Christian Coalition which can easily throw its considerable precinct-level resources behind the candidacy of a Steve Forbes or even a Dan Quayle.

    If Karla Faye Tucker is executed, it may have an unanticipated effect, not only on the political consciousness of Texas, but on the sensibilities of the religious right. Whether it is justified or not, the sanction of the death penalty is a naked, raw and blatant assertion of the power of government which, up until now, anyway, blustering politicians like Bush and hard-shell religious types like Robertson, have embraced with a drunken enthusiasm. Cranking up the electric chair, pulling the trigger or -- in a more grotesque if benign form -- pressing a button to release a deadly chemical cocktail have been stock-in- trade solutions for religious right activists in addressing what they see as the ills of modern society. That was fine when it involved hardened tough guys with tattoos, street sweeping gang bangers, serial murderers, even drug dealers. (It has been especially tempting in dealing with blacks and other ethnic minorities, who are much more apt to meet the government executioner than are their white counterparts.) And lurking at just about every religious confab these days is also another group of hard-liners, those Christian Reconstructionists who would dispense their own version of the death penalty, to an even greater slice of the American population -- those guilty of adultery, "witchcraft," homosexuality, even disrespect to parents.

    There is, of course, another contradiction in all of this; the religious right has used support of the death penalty as a benchmark in assessing its political favorites, and woe to the aspiring novice seeking a public post who has the temerity to question whether or not the death penalty is immoral in itself -- regardless of the foul deeds of those convicted of crimes. The Christian right seems to care far more about the destruction of fetal tissue (or even a single embryonic cell) than it does the fate of a complete human being on death row. And there is the unnerving fact that not all of those on death row may be guilty of the crimes they have been convicted of. The name of Sam Shepherd comes to mind, of course, but consider this fact -- court ordered DNA testing is now exonerating up to one-third of prisoners convicted of crimes such as rape. The jailing of the innocent may rank as one of the great, unnoticed and deliberately ignored crimes of our era.

    If Karla Faye Tucker had undergone a profound remaking and transformation, yet ended up as an atheist, a Buddhist, a Jew or even a Roman Catholic, she probably would not have the support of Mr. Robertson, or be a topic of discussion and frantic pleadings on his "700 Club" program. Robertson would not be taking off his hat and urging the Governor of Texas to embark on the politically-risky path of pardoning a convicted murderer, who happens to be white, female and, oh yes, a born-again Christian.

    It seems that for Pat Robertson, "compassion" is a quality to be extended only on behalf of those perhaps born with the right gender and who have adopted his particular brand of Christian salvation.

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