We love each other unconditionally," says the wife sitting next to the husband.

"Hmm ...," I say, noncommittal. Too noncommittal, it seems. The woman becomes anxious and unsure.

"You don't love your wife unconditionally?" she asks, her voice rising.

"Nope," I say. "If I go home today and discover that she's been making methamphetamine in our bathtub and selling it to third-graders, I'll call the police and turn her in. If I'm still interested, we can talk about our marriage after she gets out of prison."

My love has conditions. If you treat me badly enough, or behave badly enough, I'll withdraw my love. Same with my wife. If, for example, I had an affair, she'd be hurt and angry. She might or might not ask for a divorce, depending on several factors. But if she caught me, say, sexualizing our children, she would not merely be hurt and angry. She'd leave me. She'd take our children and go. Just like that.

Strange thing is, I admire that about my wife. Makes me feel closer to her.

My wife and I both place a high value on marriage. But, like everyone else, we have a hierarchy of values, and -- surprise surprise -- marriage is not our highest value. We value our moral obligation to stand against evil more than we value our marriage vows. If my wife was doing evil, I'd have a moral obligation to turn her in. It would break my heart to do it. But I'd do it. Likewise, my wife.

Mahatma Gandhi said it this way: "Noncooperation with evil is a sacred duty." Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, imprisoned and eventually hanged by the Nazis, put it this way: "Evil is what happens when good people do nothing."

Lilia Perez did not do nothing. Lilia is my hero.

Lilia is mother to Gladys Perez. Gladys, in turn, is mother to Crystal Figueroa, age 3, and girlfriend to Marc Anthony Colon these past four months. If I was going for ironic, I would say that Gladys and Marc have an unhealthy relationship. If I was going for dark, bitter and angry -- pretty much how I feel -- I would say that the only thing holding Gladys and Marc together would be their mutual pathologies holding hands.

Conceptualize the relationship however you'd like; the salient point is that Gladys and Marc allegedly co-authored Crystal's murder. Police have charged them with beating her to death. Then they allegedly had a, well, let's say unorthodox memorial service in an apartment parking lot before laying Crystal to rest in a Dumpster. Kind of a sick twist on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

"Wait," you might say. "Whaddya mean 'they'? It was Marc that beat Crystal to death." And to that I would say you're mincing words. A mere rhetorical technicality. To do nothing in the face of evil makes you a part of the problem. A participant. I don't much care at this point who delivered the actual blows. The courts might find that an important distinction. But I don't.

Lilia suspected something was wrong. Something didn't fit. She smelled a rat. She called the police. And the darkness unraveled right then and there.

It's hard to imagine what this cost Lilia. I've had similar thoughts about David Kaczynski, who turned in his brother, Ted, the Unabomber. If I had to blow the whistle on a family member for some evil, I think something would die inside of me. In my imagination, I would never stop grieving.

How do we thank Lilia for her courage and selflessness? I'm guessing she doesn't feel very heroic right now.

There is one way I'd be willing to rethink my position on the otherwise folly of unconditional love, and that would be if we could agree on this: Love sometimes calls us to side against our loved ones.

Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Clear View Counseling and Wellness Center in Las Vegas. Contact him at skalas@review journal.com.