Maryland abolishes death penalty.

[eppie]

But I don't hold the fear that our government is turning into some monster either. I think that there are some intensely questionable politicians that end up elected, but I have yet to see it happen en mass enough that we are at the point where we are going to become some uber conservative religious theocracy driven representative republic thing that takes steps backwards from where we are currently.

Well, I am not sure about that. The republican party has completely lost it and still almost half of the US citizens vote for them. There are millions of kids not even being told about evolution at school....let alone even being told it is wrong. And especially now that there is again some sort of power struggle after the wall fell and now that Russia and China are becoming more powerful, the idiotic masses in (all of those) countries are getting louder again.
But you are right indeed, there are mor important things than the death penalty probably.