< PREVIOUS ] [ 1999 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >
Sunday was one of those gorgeous days that compensates for putting up with Colorado during the rest of the year: warm sun, cloudless sky and minimal traffic as we returned home after a Saturday night speaking engagement in Gunnison, taking back roads and enjoying the bright glow of the hillside aspen and the warm tints of the creekside willows and cottonwoods.
Anything you find at home after that is unlikely to represent an improvement, and so it was. The Saturday Night Live 25th-anniversary broadcast teemed with self-important people who had gained their fame by mocking earlier generations of self-important people, and besides that, it dragged into tedium or worse.
Then came the news with the announcement that the Broncos had lost their third straight game. That doesn't bother me personally (when the Broncos start worrying about my welfare, I'll start worrying about theirs), but it puts a lot of people I know in bad moods, and to be honest, a lot of people I know are difficult enough to deal with when they're in good moods.
To complete this process of transforming a fine day into a depressing one, I got to watch a hate crime -- some vigilantes chopping down two trees.
The trees were part of a grove planted recently at the
West Bowles Community Church in Littleton. The plan,
according to Pastor George Kristen, was to honor
families that have been hurt
at the April 20 massacre
at nearby Columbine High School.
More specifically, there were the families of the 13 children who died at the school. And then there were the Harris and Klebold families -- the families of the murderers.
It is impossible to imagine that the Harris and Klebold
families were not hurt
by the massacre -- and in
ways hurt more than the others. It's one thing to lose a
child in a senseless act of malign violence; it would be
even worse, if possible, to realize that one's own child
was responsible.
That pain must be profoundly deep, and if the intention was to use trees to symbolize the families that suffered most from the Columbine High School massacre, then there should have been 15 trees.
After all, we're a nation that supposedly believes in religious freedom. If a church decides that 15 trees are appropriate, it really isn't anyone's business besides the congregation's.
We're also a nation that supposedly respects property rights and free expression, so if any people, church or other, want to plant 15 trees on their own land and attach whatever symbolism they want to the trees, that's their right, whether anyone else likes it or not.
Or so it seemed until Sunday, when the Tree Vigilantes went to work. First they picketed the church.
One picket sign said Unrepentant murderers honor
here,
even though the church had stated that the trees
honored families that suffered, not any individuals.
Another proclaimed no peace for the wicked,
as
though the addition of two trees to the millions in
Colorado would provide peace to anyone, wicked or
otherwise.
Picketing might be annoying and obnoxious, but the protesters were within their rights to express their disapproval at a congregation that planted two more trees than the Vigilantes believed proper.
After that came trespassing as the Vigilantes invaded the grove, then minor destruction as they nailed placards onto 13 trees, followed by the killing of two trees with saws.
As the trees fell, the Vigilante mob shouted Praise
Jesus
and Praise be to God.
We understand they're hurting,
said Theresa
Steele, a member of the congregation, but if the church
doesn't preach love and forgiveness, who will?
Good question. Another good question is whether law
enforcement agencies intend to stand aside in the future
whenever the Remember Columbine Our Way or Else
vigilantes strike again at anyone who puts up the wrong
number of trees, rocks or flowers.
Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were wrong because they took it into their own hands to get vengeance for whatever wrongs, real or imagined, they might have suffered at Columbine High School.
Our legal system does not condone private vengeance, and
as for the Praise Jesus
shouts, it was Jesus who
said Judge not, lest ye be judged.
So where was the sheriff when relatives of two victims formed a vigilante mob and took it into their own hands to enforce their notions of what is or isn't an appropriate way to remember the tragedy?
< PREVIOUS ] [ 1999 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >