Anything less than the “Hard 50” for Scott Roeder would have been worse than a miscarriage of justice.

It would have been an invitation to other kooks to commit copycat acts of domestic terrorism.

Instead, we have the virtual assurance that the 52-year-old Kansas City area man will live out his miserable life in prison for murdering George Tiller.

That ought to be sobering to every other zealot who might contemplate assassinating abortion providers.

Judge Warren Wilbert could have made Roeder eligible for parole in 25 years.

And to be sure, a quarter century is still a long time in lockup. But it’s not an eternity, and there are those in the anti-abortion movement who might be willing to give up a large chunk of their lives to become a martyr.

But 50 years — that’s the road to oblivion.

Thursday was an awfully long day, even for those of us who watched the proceedings on our computers.

At one point, one of Roeder’s loopy supporters grotesquely described his hate crime as an act of sacrifice “motivated by love.”

Love.

As sick as it sounds, that’s Iowa anti-abortion zealot David Leach’s definition of the premeditated murder of a church usher on a Sunday morning.

“He honestly believed that he could do some good,” Leach said of Roeder.

It was one of the more perverse moments.

One of the more poignant came early in the hearing, when the victim’s widow and adult children wept as family spokesman Lee Thompson recounted how the man they knew as husband, father and grandfather was shot in the face at point-blank range in Reformation Lutheran Church last May.

“An act of terrorism,” Thompson called it. That it was.

Yet here was Leach, smiling at the lectern, describing Roeder as a model citizen — “I’ve never heard him curse.”

Personally, I never heard Roeder say anything during his rambling — and often stultifyingly boring — statement in defense of his actions that suggested he possessed a hint of humanity.

Sure, he cited Scripture in support of ending the killing of unborn “babies.”

Yet Roeder expressed no remorse for murdering Tiller, while suggesting that it was wrong to criticize him for doing so in a church.

After all, in his Godlike opinion, it was not “a true church” because it accepted Tiller as a member.

And also in his opinion, God’s law trumps man’s law.

“Fifty years for protecting life, 25 years for protecting life is uncalled for,” he told the judge.

Sorry, Scott. But man’s law says thou shalt not murder. And God’s law holds that, too, I believe.

But you can take that up with him once you’ve completed your sentence.

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/04/01/1851565_hard-50-is-the-right-time-for.html?storylink=omni_popular#ixzz0jviTKoKz