WA bill mandating clergy report abuse clears Senate floor
by blondie 5 Replies latest jw friends
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NotFormer
"If Senate Bill 5375 passes and becomes law, religious leaders would have to report incidents to law enforcement or the Department of Children, Youth and Family Services within 48 hours, with no exemption. This would include information learned during penitential communication, such as confession in the Catholic Church or within the Committee of Elders in a Jehovah's Witnesses Kingdom Hall, among others. Failure to do so could be considered a gross misdemeanor. "
Interesting that they specifically point out a JW procedure and deliberately define it into this law. The tide may eventually turn.
If the WT has any sense, they'll drop any involvement with CSA and simply tell victims and their families to go to law enforcement. And if they did,It would be nice if they would accept the results of a police investigation as grounds for disfellowshipment. And that they don't penalise the victim or family for warning others.
And they need to dismantle Ted Jaracz's idiocy (and covering of his own posterior*), the two witness rule.
*I don't buy the "we'll never know, so let's not talk about it" approach. He did something over here that led to him being sent back to headquarters under a cloud of some sort. That he made it his personal crusade to weaponise the two witness rule to protect paedophiles is a pretty strong hint.
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BoogerMan
In U.K. law, an "accessory after the fact" is someone who, after a crime is committed, helps the criminal conceal it or aid their escape, and can be charged and punished as a separate offender, even if the principal offender is not convicted.
Why doesn't this law apply to Elders (and parents!) when the crime of pedophila is committed?
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peacefulpete
As I understand it, the Catholics carved out an exception with the claim that the sacrament of 'confession' was a protected religious freedom. Since they defined confession historically as a strict confidence and foundational tenet of the faith, it was successfully ruled the price of religious freedom. Many priests have in good conscious sought to reengage the confessor of a serious crime in nonsacramental setting thereby freeing the priest to follow church tradition and do what is right for society. The WT convinced the courts that they had something similar. Yet they extended the definition of confidential to included charges and complaints of serious crimes by victims to any Elder. The courts should have seen through it but given the reluctance to give the perception of imposing upon religious freedom they generally hadn't.
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Diogenesister
What I don't understand is if a priest or Elder is told by the victim (or victims parents) they've been abused, there's absolutely nothing stopping that priest or Elder going to the police anyway!!
That's not a "confession" because a victim has no sin or crime to confess - it's just the report of a crime!!
Someone please tell me if I have this wrong?!
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careful
Religious groups, not just JWs, but Catholics, Orthodox Jews, Mormons, and various Protestant ones, would soon challenge such a new law, if the bill passes, on the basis of the long-established clergy-penitent privilege. This is what happened in Montana and why the WTS won. State legislatures and other law-making bodies can pass all the laws they want, but once they're challenged in court, it's up to the courts to decide how the legal conflict between two opposing principles would be handled.
The only way all this can be ultimately settled in the USA is for SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) to take up the matter. Given the current make up of SCOTUS, full of conservatives as it is, such a change from the status quo does not look promising. From all indications they would simply declare the Washington law invalid upon the basis of the clergy-penitent privilege enshrined in federal jurisprudence.
I've made this point before in similar threads. You can get all excited about these gestures politicians make to please their constituents, but it's the courts that matter. There is a much better chance of change on this issue in Westernized countries outside of the USA.