Comments on: love thy neighbor – unless he is a convict

By: Criminals and The Future | Right to Bleed

Criminals and The Future | Right to Bleed — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:16:17 +0000

[...] surprisingly, their neighbors often strongly object to this practice. Here’s a story about one family who took in a former criminal and are now facing threats from their [...]

By: theresa

theresa — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 16:14:52 +0000

great controversy to bring up. I think many people struggle with this idea because of how criminals are portrayed and out of instinct. When you hear about someone like that moving into your neighborhood, its only natural for some fear to spark up. Fear causes people to act in ways they can’t always explain, as in threats to a reverend. However their threats of burning a house down make themselves seem just as potentially dangerous as a convicted murderer…
I guess my point is that how can you point out others flaws when you yourself are making threats. And not everyone has the faith that this reverend has so they won’t have any hope for this convict.

By: michelle

michelle — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 21:07:09 +0000

thanks again. i think the title i used put a more negative slant on the post than i intended. but i am fond of the billboard in the picture, and i think the reverend would be, too.

By: slamdunk

slamdunk — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 13:53:18 +0000

Thanks for the clarification, and sorry, I should have taken more of a glass-is-half-full approach to my response.

By: michelle

michelle — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 20:43:04 +0000

thanks for the really thoughtful comment, slamdunk. i appreciate your perspective. i wasn’t trying to imply anything in particular about the religion of the neighborhood residents. i understand they have real fears about guay coming to live in their community. what i liked about this story is that reverend pinckney truly does seem to be living and acting his beliefs. it’s one thing to profess a belief in the transformative possibilities of redemption and forgiveness (as i would suggest christian faith does) and quite another to act on it by bringing a violent offender into your own home. brave act. i hope the reverend’s faith is rewarded and that this situation does not end badly.

By: slamdunk

slamdunk — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:48:35 +0000

Good topic. Just a few observations on this interesting/sad story:

–I think it is unfair to single out Christians for one church’s stand on the issue. There are hundreds of area residents representative of all beliefs and non-beliefs that are against Mr. Guay’s residency.

Continuing on the Christian issue, I would argue that you can still love one’s neighbor as one’s self by insisting that the parolee be placed in a facility that can better accommodate his “rehabilitation” as opposed to another person’s home with no controls. This could be seen as simply setting a “lifer” up to fail.

I don’t see anything against Christianity in arguing that Guay should not be still incarcerated:

“…(he) already had a criminal record when he was charged in 1973, at age 25, with abducting and murdering a 12-year-old boy in Nashua. Authorities said he planned to sexually assault the boy, whose body was clad only in socks and undershorts. Guay pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to up to 25 years…”

He kidnapped a Concord couple after briefly escaping from the nearby state prison in 1982 and was sent to a federal prison in California, where he stabbed an inmate in 1991, court records show.”

I think citizens are saying if he did his time according to the government, then let the government find some other community for him to live–because we still believe he is dangerous.

And they would not be alone–Guay is still considered a high enough risk that a halfway house in California refused to accept him.

I don’t see having religious faith as surrending one’s sense for safety–especially in relation to children. I appreciate what the minister is trying to do, but there is a very real danger to it.

There was a similar story in the news last year with a tragic ending–I’ll see if I can find it.