What's the Uproar?

(photo courtesy of Fox News)

What's the Uproar?

Sunday evening at midnight, Casey Anthony was set free and escorted by police to whereabouts unknown. The media have been playing up this case, causing widespread anger and hatred towards the woman who played some part in her 2 year old daughter's death. The following quotes are taken from Fox News regarding her release. No author name was given:

As Anthony's SUV left the jail's parking lot, the crowd of more than 100 people surged against the orange plastic police barricades and some yelled "You suck!" Mounted patrolmen and police cruisers blocked the street outside the jail so Anthony's vehicle could drive onto a nearby highway ramp unobstructed.

"A baby killer was just set free!" Bree Thornton, 39, shouted at the passing SUV.

"She is safer in jail than she is out here," said Mike Quiroz, who drove from Miami to spend his 22nd birthday outside the jail.

"She better watch her butt. She is known all over the world." Lamar Jordan said he felt a pit in his stomach when he saw Anthony walking free. "The fact that she is being let out, the fact that it is her child and she didn't say what happened, made me sick," Jordan said.

Outraged lawmakers in several states responded by proposing so-called Caylee's laws that would allow authorities to prosecute parents who don't quickly report missing children.

Her backers... appeared to be vastly outnumbered by her critics.

Facebook evidently has an "I Hate Casey Anthony" group. Her legal team received an emailed death threat with a photoshopped picture of Casey Anthony with a bullet wound.

According to authorities, contingency plans were in place in the event that Ms. Anthony was shot from the gathered crowd. Her story has evidently changed several times. Clearly she bears some if not all responsibility for the death of her child.

I, too, am upset that a young child, practically an innocent baby, had to die due to whatever events surrounded her death.

My question is... Why the hate? Why the uproar? This very same thing happens one million times, let me repeat that- ONE MILLION TIMES in our country each YEAR. Yet... there is no outrage. There is no condemnation. There is no protest. There is just... a quivering silence. A silence that is reflected in the suffering that helpless babies go through when they are aborted. I don't see a large difference between the two events. I doubt that God does, either. Should we differentiate the value of human life based on appearance? Has the story of Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man taught us nothing?

In writing of this dichotomy of perception, I protest with my own small voice, though I know it is not alone. Stop it. Stop it all. Stop us from lying to ourselves. Stop us from killing our own. Stop us from the false perception that everything that is possible is permissible. Stop us from our spiritual Frankenstein. Have mercy on all of us, oh Lord. Amen.

G.Houtchens
armchair coach
amateur historian