Richard Viguerie has been called the ​“fund­ing father of the con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment,” and has helped start such ini­tia­tives as the Conservative Digest and the Moral Majority. He was recent­ly inter­viewed in Sojourners Magazine, where he spoke about his faith-based oppo­si­tion to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. He said the issue of inno­cence was a key prob­lem: ​“I’ve become aware that through­out his­to­ry, many inno­cent peo­ple have been con­vict­ed of crimes and exe­cut­ed. There are few things more hor­ren­dous than that, tak­ing an inno­cent life by the pow­er of gov­ern­ment. The state is all-pow­er­ful in these mat­ters, and it’s a very ter­ri­fy­ing thing. People do make mis­takes.” He urged con­ser­v­a­tives to take lead­er­ship on chal­leng­ing the death penal­ty: ​“I think that a lot of the lead­er­ship … will prob­a­bly need to come from the con­ser­v­a­tives. We need to make it accept­able to dis­cuss this in the pub­lic square. Once con­ser­v­a­tives pro­vide that cov­er for this issue to be an accept­able issue to dis­cuss, debate, and leg­is­late on, I think things can move forward.”

(“Who Would Jesus Execute,” Sojourners (inter­view with Jim Wallis, edi­tor), January 2013, DPIC post­ed Jan. 21, 2013). See New Voices.

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