It’s not like they’re going to tell in themselves…

In case anyone is not aware, this is common sense and up to this point the failure to include clergypersons has been a serious oversight.

The following individuals already fall under mandatory reporting laws in Washington:

• Medical practitioners
• Nurses
• Dentists
• Social service counselors/therapists
• Psychologists
• Medical examiners
• Pharmacists
• School personnel
• Child care providers
• Law enforcement officers
• Juvenile probation officers
• Corrections employees
• DSHS employees
• DCYF employees
• Placement and liaison specialists
• Responsible living skills program staff
• HOPE center staff
• State family and children's ombudsman
• Any volunteer in the ombudsman's office
• Adults residing with child suspected to have been severely abused

"As currently written, the proposed bill in the Legislature would mandate that clergy report child abuse or neglect if they “received the information from any source other than from a confession.”  "

Bullshit. Include confession.

Jesus. Wow!

There’s no current laws that requires this?

It’s 2023! And they have federal/state tax exemption status.

Church based counseling is correlated with a lot of really terrible and chronic abuses.

Why does this need to be a bill? Do the right thing.

The churches will come out in force against this, like they did when they fought for the right to lie to pregnant women through pregnancy centers. (They won, btw.)

How is this not a law already?!?

> some 120 proposed bills amending mandatory reporter laws failed due in part to resistance from the Roman Catholic Church, the Mormon church and Jehovah’s Witnesses

What a joke. Of course a bunch of kid diddlers don’t want any rules that require them to report kid diddling, they’d lose far too many people.

/r/pastorarrested tells me many clergy would need to plead the 5th if this were law.

It just got amended in Committee to remove that exemption.

WA voters, you can send a quick comment in support of these bills to your state representatives at these links:

• House Bill 1098
• Senate Bill 5280

No churches testified against it, the Catholic Church actually supported it

This is one of the many reasons why religion is bullshit. They should be more than willing to report child abuse, not fighting to cover it up.

🙌

BUT if the clergy are required to report child abuse, how will they continue to abuse children?

Just means it will be thrown out as violating religious freedom.

[removed]

Confessional privilege still exists so I don’t think you’re correct.

No, when the bill came up to regulate pregnancy crisis centers (ie, force them to tell the truth and not lie to ypung mothers), Catholic groups lined up to fight it. Which isnt surprisong since most of them are run by the RCC.

It didnt pass, thanks to them.

I’m referring to the child abuse/mandated reporter bill.

They’re the only ones that could report abuse before it happens!!

You know who else aren’t mandated reporters? Firefighters and EMTs

The whole basis of Christianity is that people don't do the right thing so frequently God had to be invented.

True but when they get caught everyone who knew about it will go down with them. Just need a few examples made and hopefully no one will be willing to hide those kind of secrets anymore.

You forgot the /s. I got it, but someone else didn't, lol.

Right, how tf will they enforce this? Cops aren't allowed inside the churches.....

They amended it to require even if confessed.

They amended it to require clergy to report child abuse when admitted to in confession, like I said, but clergy are still exempt from testifying in court.

Does it include when the clergy abuses children?

Clergy are not mandatory reporters under current WA state law. That’s why we need to contact our legislators to ask them to pass these bills when they come up for a vote!

Use the links below to leave a brief comment in support of these bills for your representatives:

• House Bill 1098
• Senate Bill 5280

Requiring to report breaks the vow just as testifying in court does.

that means the priests will be arrested, so maybe thats a good thing

For othodox religous folks what the "right thing to do" comes from the church. If the church doesn't support it then God must not support it.

The LDS (mormon) Church will not like this...

Huh. So even though there has been no hearings on this bill, that it hasn't even been presented to a committee, you claim that "no church testified against it." Since that doesn't make sense, and I assumed you were here in good faith and actually read my post, it was logical to conclude that you were talking about the failed bill on pregnancy crisis centers.

I read the article and didn’t see this answered. (I could have missed it.)

Would this include all employees at a church or only specific clergy? I only ask because I know there are ministry leaders at churches that hear a lot of things but they aren’t technically “clergy”.

Also, this would not include confessions which I know they are doing so it’s easier to pass. I hope they close that loophole soon.

The churches argument is that it would eliminate trust in the church which I find pretty ironic since the church is the one being accused of abusing kids.

About time, this needed to be a law long ago. Many of the preachers are party to the abuse, and this will allow them to be prosecuted.

One could make the argument that the rights of the child to be safe from abusive caretakers outweigh any religious liberty rights of the adult(s) in these situations.

Mormons ain’t gonna be happy about that one

Thank you, I'll read the links. I was confused if they had to report possible abuse by churchgoers only, or clergy abusing churchgoers. Of course it should be any and all. -thanks again

It would have already been the good Christian MORAL thing to do. But they haven't been doing it for hundreds of years already. You think being mandated by the government is gonna make them change their ways?

You wanna double check that? HB 1098

The vow and the law are two different things, idk what to tell you

Anybody who is a “spiritual leader” counts under this bill so ministry leaders would count. It was amended in Committee to require clergy to report abuse even if the information came from confession.

Oh nice. That’s great on both counts. Thank you.

So? You wrote a very bad sentence, something that I took at face value, and gave you the reasons why I read it that way. You don't like it? Then learn how to write.

Big feelings over here. I’m just trying to help give more information on these bills.

Then why not just post the links? Why bother replying to some random redditor? You sound like someone with a hidden agenda.

Yup I’m on here to spread a conspiracy by giving factual information about bills and the legislature when people make posts about it.

All you've done is made a comment about a bill that was introduced two weeks ago. Do you have a source for that "factual information"? You could have posted it by now, you know.

It wasn’t just introduced, it passed out of committee. And I’m commenting about it because it’s what this whole post is about?

1- If you wanted to comment, you'd make you own thread, instead of commenting on mine. Why bother?

2- The only thing of value you've said on this thread is your claim that "the CC supports it." That was several replies ago. Your signal-to-noise ratio lays heavily on the noise side.

3- If you want to give me a link about the CCs attitude towards the bill, I'd like to read it.

Well in this country the first amendment says the government can't make laws that prohibit practice of a religion. And confession and its protection is a pretty big part of Christianity. There's just no way it survives a legal challenge on first amendment grounds.

Just like every other constitutional right there are limitations.