Episode 41 | “Jesus Wept”

In an unconventional move, Judge Fred Biery wrote these words in his opinion ordering the release of Liam and Adrian Conejo Arias: “Jesus wept.” I don’t read it so much as an imposition of Christian values on the legal system, but as highlighting the moral depravity of an administration that is willing to detain children to prove a point. I’ll link to her commentary below, but a Lawyer and Mother wrote that his use of this verse speaks less to a political failing (though it is) and more to a spiritual failing. In its simplest form, religion, from the Latin relegare, means to bind together. To practice being bound to one another does not require a particular doctrine, only a belief that each person is worthy of dignity and reverence, and to treat them as such.