Back before Don’t Ask Don’t Tell had been repealed, noted video blogger and NYC radio DJ Jay Smooth had this to say about the perversity of a society terrified by homosexuality:

Because when we find ourselves believing that killing a man makes us more of a man, but loving a man makes us less of a man, it’s probably time to re-examine our criteria for manhood.

This quote has been on my mind a lot lately.

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A couple of days ago, I read an old article from Rolling Stone about Joseph Hudgins, a boy who had been sentenced to death at the age of 17. Despite questions about the veracity of his confession and the constitutional legality of his case, at the time of the article’s publication in 1995, Joseph had been on death row for three years. This passage in particular stuck out to me:

Joseph Hudgins is one of 42 inmates nationwide on death row who were legally children at the time of their offenses – a number that is likely to increase dramatically in years to come. More and more states are adopting the death penalty – New York became the 38th this year – and legislatures are applying it to a broader range of crimes.

It is also being used increasingly against children. Four states permit the execution of youths who were 17 at the time of their crimes; 21 states permit it for 16 year olds. In the race for governor of Texas last year, both the then incumbent governor, Ann Richards, and George Bush Jr., who defeated her, said they’d think about using the death penalty for children as young as 14.

The United States is virtually alone in the world in taking this position. In the last 15 years, only Iraq and possibly Iran have executed more minors, and only six other countries have executed even one. Some of the very qualities that make juvenile criminals most terrifying -their impulsiveness, a tendency to fall under the sway of others and a need to prove their toughness to the group – raise questions about their suitability for a punishment that the law reserves for a small group of the most morally culpable killers. Minors are thought too immature to sit on a jury, vote, buy beer or watch an X-rated movie, yet they are considered responsible enough to pay for their crimes with their lives.

I’m active in social issues because I want to believe that it’s possible to change society into something that we can be proud of, but when I read articles like these, I can’t help but wonder:

What is wrong with us? Why do I even bother?

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Back in June, there was an article in Seattle’s alternative newspaper The Stranger about the ‘South Park incident’. The article, rightly titled “Seattle’s Bravest Woman”, tells the story of a mentally ill man who entered the home of a couple and repeatedly raped both at knifepoint before killing one woman and almost killing the other. In particular, it details the testimony of the surviving victim, Jennifer Hopper, who only recently chose to eschew anonymity.

These articles are difficult to read. They’re not graphic, but they convey the horrific reality of what the two women lived through with such stark clarity that it’s hard not to have a visceral, physical reaction to them. I cried so hard I couldn’t breathe. I had to take breaks, and go for walks, before coming back to them. But as one commenter on Metafilter says: it is the least we can do to bear witness to the bravery that these two women exhibited.

I can’t imagine what Hopper went through…is still going through. I can’t imagine the type of grace and courage she must have, to be able say:

I do wish you [the attacker] peace, and I do not hate you. I am so sorry for whatever it is in your life. You took so much of me, and I am not broken, but glad you won’t be around to hurt me. I wish you no harm. I never sought to have you put to death. I wish you peace every last day of your life.

I can’t imagine it, and I hope I’m never called on to exhibit that type of courage, because I don’t think I would have it in me.

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There was a third article in the Stranger in this series. It detailed the troubled mind of the attacker, Isaiah Kalebu, the warning signs that he exhibited in the months leading up to the attack that were noted and then simply ignored. It’s heartbreaking to read of the many ways in which he had been forsaken by the mental health institutions that were meant to protect him, and others from him.

The rational side of me is grateful for this article, for the humanizing insight into the struggles of someone whose life can’t have been easy. But the emotional side of me is angry that I can’t simply hate Kalebu for having done something like this. Angry that the world isn’t black and white. Angry that fate is such a shitheel that some are forced to watch their partners die in front of them, that some people have no control over their minds at all.

Angry, and terrified, because this amazing hand that I’ve been dealt by fate could be taken away from me at any moment, because what happened to Jennifer and Teresa could easily happen to me, because there’s simply no rhyme nor reason to these things.

But even as I’m crying for Hopper and mourning the man that Kalebu could have been, a little voice inside of my mind is whispering, cynically, that Hopper is lucky that she was “picked” to have a voice in her case, that her attacker fit the public ideal of an attacker, that there was clear harm and clear guilt in this case, that she lived in a first world country, that she was white. Hopper herself is cognizant of the complex dynamic surrounding rape culture:

Many women don’t report rapes, and among those who do, many don’t testify. I understand why. There can be such a level of shame, and the conversation out there, a lot of the time, is: What did the women do to bring this on? In our case: Why was your window open that night?

Or, in other cases, that the woman wore a short skirt or opened the door to a stranger. And trials can end up being about whether the woman is lying or what else she did to supposedly try to make this occur.

Well, that’s not why we were raped.

I can’t emphasize that last point enough. That’s not why they were raped. Women, and men and children, aren’t raped and killed because they wore provocative clothing and were cursed with natural beauty and didn’t struggle enough. They are raped and killed because rapists raped them and killers killed them.

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To bring this post back to the original topic, this is what Hopper had to say about the justice system:

A part of me was hoping that when I heard the word “guilty,” I would feel this incredible relief—you know, movie-script ending, everyone sails away into the sunset and is happy again. Yes, there was a relief that Kalebu wasn’t found “not guilty,” that everyone did the right thing and the system worked.

But there’s also this lack of satisfaction.

In a way, I felt like I lost Teresa all over again; this was the very last thing I could do for her. You feel a little helpless when you realize there’s nothing out there in the future that might make you feel better. Except time. You know that time heals. And hope.

What I really want, I now realize, is peace.

And I know now, after this trial, that justice does not bring peace. It only brings justice.

Why am I against the death penalty? Because the point of the justice system is justice, and because justice is impersonal, and not everyone can be trusted to be as graceful as Jennifer Hopper.

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I wish I could wave a magic wand and make everyone in the world read these articles. I genuinely believe that this would make the world a more harmonious place. I can’t believe—refuse to believe—that people exist who can read Joseph’s story and continue lobbying for the death penalty. That people can read Kalebu’s story and continue cutting funding for mental health institutions. That people can read Hopper’s story and continue to blame the victim in rape cases, or somehow try to make it out that same-sex couples deserve second-class citizen status.

But I can’t, and that’s why I bother, and why I care.

For Jennifer, and Teresa, and all the other silent victims who never see a shred of justice, or of peace. For all the people in this world for whom rape is a daily reality, who have been forsaken by the very representatives who are in charge of protecting them. For all the people living in war and famine, dying of curable diseases while pharmaceutical executives buy another private jet.

That’s why we fight.

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Jennifer Hopper—Jen to her friends, J-Hop to her deceased partner—is such an incredible inspiration.

I don’t think I’m special. I don’t think I’m this awesome, amazing individual. I don’t. I struggle every day. It’s taken bravery to make the choice to get up every day and not stay in my room and pretend it didn’t happen. And I’m proud of that.

But sometimes crazy stuff happens and we’re called on to be brave, and I don’t think I’ve done anything different than anyone else would do. Anyway, bravery isn’t always a solitary thing. All these people in my life have helped. You, by listening to my story, have helped.

Finally—but, really, firstly—Teresa’s bravery has helped. When someone saves your life, and her life is taken in the process, how can you let it go to waste?

You can’t.

So I try to be the best person I can be and try to make the most of the life Teresa saved.