We are Christ-centered Friends who equip and encourage all people
to respond to God's love and transforming Spirit.

Minute on Torture
adopted by Klamath Falls Friends Meeting on May 7, 2006

For those of you who are unfamiliar with a Quaker minute, here is a brief explanation…

A minute is a statement of belief that an individual or group would like to record for others to see, both now and in the future about a certain topic or person. This is recorded in our minutes, which is held as a permanent record of our Meeting's convictions. It will become part of the history of this Meeting. It can be used to stimulate thought and discussion among other Meetings and/or to inform various decision-makers beyond our Meeting of our deeply held beliefs.

As Christians and members of West Hills Friends Church and Klamath Falls Friends Church (Quaker), we embrace the ancient teaching of scripture, "And God said, Let us make the human being in our image, after our likeness." (Genesis 1:26) Our spiritual forefathers and mothers taught us about "that of God" in every person and of the "light of Christ within" that illumines our lives and directs our actions. Jesus Christ showed us this light in his earthly life and taught us the way of peace as children of God. His valuing of person, both high and lowly and his call to us to live as children of the kingdom of light, cause us to speak out against recent, and perhaps ongoing torture practices by our country.

Along with many others, we are shocked, revolted and saddened by our government's use of torture in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, despite our constitutional and Supreme Court precedents that have historically denounced physical and psychological cruelty. We see these practices, as characteristic, not of this nation, but of those repressive and totalitarian regimes that we have historically criticized, judged deficient, and often sanctioned. The Geneva Convention, considered to be the standard of civilized conduct for nations who respect human dignity, have been denigrated, denied and ignored by leaders of our nation.

We believe that torture can never be justified as a means of control or extracting information from those deemed enemies. Torture dehumanizes its victims, obliterating the image of God in those who are tortured, and thus insulting the Creator of us all. Perpetrators, in their blindness to the humanity of those they torture, become inflictors of unbearable humiliation and pain. Thus torture, by its barbaric practices and disregard for the dignity of fellow human beings, steals the humanity of tortured and torturer alike.

We now call on our government leaders, including the executive branch, to renounce the wrong and inhumane treatment of prisoners during recent years and to uphold in both word and deed the McCain Amendment to the Budget Bill recently passed by the U.S. Senate. Further we ask that these words of William Penn (1683) be the norm for further actions by government and individuals alike: "A good end cannot sanctify evil means, nor must we ever do evil that good may come of it…Let us then try what Love may do."