A Statement of Conscience: People of Faith Reject the Livestreaming of an Execution
The Issue
An Open Letter to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the United States Department of Defense
We, the undersigned people of faith, representing diverse religious traditions and moral convictions, raise our voices in profound moral objection to the Pentagon’s decision to livestream the scheduled execution by firing squad of Nidal Malik Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist convicted of murdering 13 people and wounding 32 others in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting.
We do not minimize the horror of that tragedy. We honor the lives lost, hold the wounded and survivors in our prayers, and recognize the enduring grief carried by families, fellow service members, and the Fort Hood community. Their suffering deserves our deepest compassion, our unwavering support, and our enduring commitment to justice.
But justice must never become a spectacle, and the power of the state must never be confused with the moral authority to entertain the public with death.
The decision to broadcast an execution raises profound questions about the values we wish our nation to embody. What purpose is served by inviting the public to watch a human being put to death? What lesson is taught when the machinery of government turns an execution into a public event? And what does it say about us when the deliberate taking of a human life becomes something to be witnessed on a screen?
As people of faith, we believe that human dignity does not depend upon innocence, popularity, religion, or the nature of a person’s crimes. We can condemn an act of horrific violence without surrendering our own moral responsibility. We can seek justice without celebrating death. And we can stand with victims and survivors without turning another human being’s death into a public spectacle.
Our sacred traditions differ in their teachings about capital punishment. Yet across those traditions runs a powerful and enduring call to humility, compassion, restraint, and reverence for human life.
Across our diverse traditions, we find teachings that challenge us to respond to wrongdoing without surrendering compassion, to exercise power with restraint, and to uphold human dignity. For people of many faiths, the worth of a society is measured not simply by how it punishes wrongdoing, but by how faithfully it upholds its deepest moral commitments when confronted with wrongdoing of the gravest kind.
The question before us is not whether Nidal Malik Hasan should be held accountable for his crimes. The question is whether our government should turn his death into a broadcast.
We believe it should not.
Transparency in government is essential. Accountability matters. But transparency does not require the public display of an execution. Accountability does not require a livestream. And deterrence, whatever its merits in this debate, should never become an excuse to normalize public exposure to state-sanctioned killing.
We are particularly concerned about the message such a broadcast sends to a society already saturated with images of violence. Our children and young people deserve a culture that teaches respect for human dignity, not one that risks presenting death as a demonstration of governmental strength. Our military deserves to be recognized for its service, discipline, courage, and commitment to protecting life, not placed at the center of an event that risks reducing an execution to a spectacle.
We therefore call upon the Department of Defense to reverse its decision to livestream this execution and to refrain from using the death of any person as a public demonstration or instrument of spectacle.
We further call upon our elected officials, religious leaders, and communities of conscience to speak clearly about the moral responsibilities that accompany the exercise of state power. We ask people of faith across traditions to join us, not to excuse violence, not to diminish the suffering of victims, and not to abandon the pursuit of justice, but to insist that our response to violence must not diminish our own humanity.
The measure of our humanity is not found in our willingness to watch another person die. It is found in our willingness to defend human dignity, even when doing so is difficult, unpopular, or uncomfortable.
We call upon our nation to choose justice over spectacle, dignity over dehumanization, and conscience over the normalization of death as public entertainment.
As people of faith, we believe that the dignity of human life is not ours to discard when it becomes inconvenient. Our moral witness requires us to say clearly, courageously, and together.
We invite people of faith, religious organizations, clergy, and all people of conscience to add their names to this statement.
Signed,
Rev. Dr. Neil G Thomas
CLEAR DFW
2,574
The Issue
An Open Letter to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the United States Department of Defense
We, the undersigned people of faith, representing diverse religious traditions and moral convictions, raise our voices in profound moral objection to the Pentagon’s decision to livestream the scheduled execution by firing squad of Nidal Malik Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist convicted of murdering 13 people and wounding 32 others in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting.
We do not minimize the horror of that tragedy. We honor the lives lost, hold the wounded and survivors in our prayers, and recognize the enduring grief carried by families, fellow service members, and the Fort Hood community. Their suffering deserves our deepest compassion, our unwavering support, and our enduring commitment to justice.
But justice must never become a spectacle, and the power of the state must never be confused with the moral authority to entertain the public with death.
The decision to broadcast an execution raises profound questions about the values we wish our nation to embody. What purpose is served by inviting the public to watch a human being put to death? What lesson is taught when the machinery of government turns an execution into a public event? And what does it say about us when the deliberate taking of a human life becomes something to be witnessed on a screen?
As people of faith, we believe that human dignity does not depend upon innocence, popularity, religion, or the nature of a person’s crimes. We can condemn an act of horrific violence without surrendering our own moral responsibility. We can seek justice without celebrating death. And we can stand with victims and survivors without turning another human being’s death into a public spectacle.
Our sacred traditions differ in their teachings about capital punishment. Yet across those traditions runs a powerful and enduring call to humility, compassion, restraint, and reverence for human life.
Across our diverse traditions, we find teachings that challenge us to respond to wrongdoing without surrendering compassion, to exercise power with restraint, and to uphold human dignity. For people of many faiths, the worth of a society is measured not simply by how it punishes wrongdoing, but by how faithfully it upholds its deepest moral commitments when confronted with wrongdoing of the gravest kind.
The question before us is not whether Nidal Malik Hasan should be held accountable for his crimes. The question is whether our government should turn his death into a broadcast.
We believe it should not.
Transparency in government is essential. Accountability matters. But transparency does not require the public display of an execution. Accountability does not require a livestream. And deterrence, whatever its merits in this debate, should never become an excuse to normalize public exposure to state-sanctioned killing.
We are particularly concerned about the message such a broadcast sends to a society already saturated with images of violence. Our children and young people deserve a culture that teaches respect for human dignity, not one that risks presenting death as a demonstration of governmental strength. Our military deserves to be recognized for its service, discipline, courage, and commitment to protecting life, not placed at the center of an event that risks reducing an execution to a spectacle.
We therefore call upon the Department of Defense to reverse its decision to livestream this execution and to refrain from using the death of any person as a public demonstration or instrument of spectacle.
We further call upon our elected officials, religious leaders, and communities of conscience to speak clearly about the moral responsibilities that accompany the exercise of state power. We ask people of faith across traditions to join us, not to excuse violence, not to diminish the suffering of victims, and not to abandon the pursuit of justice, but to insist that our response to violence must not diminish our own humanity.
The measure of our humanity is not found in our willingness to watch another person die. It is found in our willingness to defend human dignity, even when doing so is difficult, unpopular, or uncomfortable.
We call upon our nation to choose justice over spectacle, dignity over dehumanization, and conscience over the normalization of death as public entertainment.
As people of faith, we believe that the dignity of human life is not ours to discard when it becomes inconvenient. Our moral witness requires us to say clearly, courageously, and together.
We invite people of faith, religious organizations, clergy, and all people of conscience to add their names to this statement.
Signed,
Rev. Dr. Neil G Thomas
CLEAR DFW
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Petition created on October 9, 2026