Values Voters - Child Executions

 On March 1, 2005, the U.S. Supreme
Court ruled that children under age
18 who commit serious crimes such as
murder, may not be executed, and
stated that execution of children
constitutes a violation of the Eighth
Amendment ban on cruel and unusual
punishment.  It should be noted that
more than half of the countries in
the world have entirely eliminated
the death penalty, and that there are
four international human rights
treaties that exclude child offenders
from the death penalty.  In a worldwide
study of the execution of children
between 1994 and 2002, two-thirds of
the executions of children occurred
in the United States.

While it has been said that Bush was
elected by the "values voters", I have
previously found that the states that
voted for Bush in the November, 2004
election had higher divorce rates,
higher murder rates, and higher teen
pregnancy rates.  So, when I heard that
there were 19 states that had allowed
execution of children, I wondered if
the "values voters" states - those who
voted for Bush - were more or less
likely to allow the execution of
children.  Following is the list of
states that allowed execution of
children prior to the Supreme Court
ruling, and how they voted in the
recent presidential election:


Alabama              Bush
Arizona              Bush
Arkansas             Bush
Delaware             Kerry
Florida              Bush
Georgia              Bush
Idaho                Bush
Kentucky             Bush
Louisiana            Bush
Mississippi          Bush
Nevada               Bush
New Hampshire        Kerry
North Carolina       Bush
Oklahoma             Bush
Pennsylvania         Kerry
South Carolina       Bush
Texas                Bush
Utah                 Bush
Virginia             Bush


Of the 19 states that did allow
execution of children, sixteen
voted for Bush.  So, not only do
Bush's "values voters" have
higher rates of divorce, murder,
and teen pregnancy, they are also
more likely to execute children.
The notion that Bush voters have
higher moral standards is a myth,
and is not supported by the facts.

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