I absolutely adore my family, and I will drop just about anything to attend a family get together, but I especially look forward to the annual family Christmas dinner at my mom and dad's house, which happened on December 11th this year.
The Wheaton Family Christmas (2005 edition) was exactly like any other of the always-awesome Wheaton Family Christmas gatherings, with one exception that was so painful, I wrote an essay about it for Salon.com called The Real War on Christmas, which is excerpted on the flip . . .
This year it looked as though it would be a typical family gathering. But that all changed when I walked through the living room on my way to get some eggnog. I asked my younger sister, who was flipping through the channels on the television, what she was looking for.
"I'm trying to find Court TV," she said.
"Why?" I said.
"Because the governor is supposed to announce whether he is granting clemency for Tookie Williams at 3 p.m.," she said.
I was surprised to hear she cared, because my sister has always been pretty nonpolitical. "I don't think he will grant clemency...," I began to say. But before I could add, "because he's going to try to win back his hardcore base with this," she spat at me, "He'd better not!"
My sister was a death-penalty proponent? That was news to me. I didn't want to upset the family gathering, so I decided to just let this one go.
"OK," I said, "I guess we'd better not talk about this."
But just then, my father walked into the room.
"Wil thinks Tookie Williams shouldn't be executed," she said.
Oh boy.
"What?" My dad said. Not to my sister, to me.
Here we go.
"Well," I said, "I don't believe in the death penalty, so..."
You know those optical illusion drawings, where you're looking at a smiling man, then suddenly he's become a werewolf? Faster than you could say "Fox News," my dad was screaming at me, Bill O'Reilly-style.
"... an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth! He killed four..." he stabbed at the air with four fingers on his left hand, "four people in cold blood and deserves! to! die!"
I briefly made eye contact with my stepson, Nolan, who sat just behind my father on my parents' couch. His face flushed and he quickly looked away. My sister had stopped her channel surfing on a shopping network, and he looked awfully interested in putting a sapphire ring on easy-pay. While my dad continued to scream about biblical vengeance, I went into shock. Just minutes earlier, we'd stood together outside on the deck and laughed with each other as he congratulated me for a great finish I'd had the previous day at a poker tournament in Las Vegas. In fact, I'd cut my trip short, specifically so I wouldn't miss the family Christmas.
What a difference five minutes makes. While he screamed at me, I wanted to ask, "Who are you, and what have you done with the man who raised me to be tolerant, patient, peaceful and charitable?" Instead, I said, as calmly as I could, "Dad, I just don't believe in the death penalty. It is unevenly applied to poor people, and clearly doesn't work as a deterrent..."
"It doesn't work as a deterrent because they allow these scum to stay alive for 25 years before they give them what they deserve!" I hadn't seen my dad this angry since I was a sophomore in high school and my friends and I woke up my mom after midnight one night because we got a little worked up in a Nintendo game of "Blades of Steel."
"Dad," I said, "living in prison for 25 years isn't anything to be happy about..."
"Like hell it isn't!" he bellowed. "They get satellite television, and weights, and free meals, and jobs, and a library..."
"And raped, and beaten by guards, and sold as slaves by prison gangs," I said. "That really sounds good to you? Because it sounds like a pretty lousy life for violent criminals, which is exactly what they deserve."
He violently shook his head at me and drew a deep breath. "The victims' families get to watch that animal die! If they don't get to watch him die, how can they get the closure they deserve?" Before I could reply, and he could launch into another round of talking points, I was unintentionally saved by my brother, who called our dad to come outside and help him with the turkey on the barbecue.
He turned quickly, and stormed out of the room, followed by my sister.
I have to make something excruciatingly clear: I don't only love my dad, I
like my dad, and I love being with him and my mom whenever I get the chance. I talked to my dad before this essay was published, because I didn't want him to be blindsided by it, and he told me that he was proud of me for writing it, and having it published in a prestigious publication like Salon.
I have been loudly criticized by my fellow lefties for suggesting that prisoners "deserve" to be raped while incarcerated -- I do not feel that way, and I blame a poor choice of words for causing that confusion. I don't believe prisoners "deserve" any of the misery they endure in prison, but I do believe that they deserve to be there if they've been correctly convicted of a crime. In fact, prison is the best place for violent people who are a threat to the rest of our society.
This essay is less about a political disagreement with my father than it is about the current state of political discourse in the USA, and really isn't about the merits of the death penalty. I get the sense that most people understand this, but for the few who don't, (including some idiot who left a comment at Salon where he called my dad all sorts of names) I wanted to be crystal clear.
And, despite The Great Eye For An Eye Explosion of 2005, I'm meeting my parents for dinner and games tomorrow night at their house, with my siblings and my wife, and I can't wait.