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SALT LAKE CITY — Survivors and religion leaders rallied Friday on the Utah State Capitol to demand change to a state regulation that exempts spiritual leaders from necessities that they report baby sexual abuse dropped at their consideration in non secular confessions.
“If we as a folks, as church buildings and as a state are failing to guard our kids, then we’re failing,” Lindsey Lundholm, the rally’s organizer, informed an viewers of greater than 100 in Salt Lake Metropolis that included survivors of abuse applauding whereas tears streamed down their faces.
Lundholm spoke of her firsthand expertise of abuse rising up in Idaho as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As a younger lady and member of the religion extensively often called the Mormon church, she mentioned she informed a neighborhood bishop about her abuse and as a substitute of reporting it to regulation enforcement, the bishop guided her abuser to hunt forgiveness from God.
Lundholm’s story was one in every of many shared on the steps of the Capitol, which stands on a hill above the church headquarters and its Salt Lake Temple. Different ladies additionally shared their tales and skim aloud written accounts collected for the demonstration, utilizing them to demand lawmakers require clergy report abuse when it’s confessed to them.
The rally comes two weeks after an Related Press investigation discovered the church’s abuse reporting system may be misused by church leaders to divert abuse accusations away from regulation enforcement and as a substitute to church attorneys who could bury the issue, leaving victims in hurt’s means.
The AP story, based mostly on sealed information and courtroom circumstances filed in Arizona and West Virginia, uncovered a bunch of issues that victims have raised concerning the helpline. These embrace how church officers have cited exemptions to necessary reporting legal guidelines, so-called clergy-penitent privilege, as an excuse for not reporting abuse dropped at their consideration of kids as younger as 5 years outdated.
Since its publication, the church has criticized the story as flawed. In an announcement this week, its representatives mentioned the assistance line “has every part to do with defending youngsters and has nothing to do with cover-up,” however didn’t dispute any of the story’s info.
Utah is amongst greater than 20 states with comparable legal guidelines that give reporting exceptions to clergy who obtain details about baby neglect or sexual abuse throughout non secular confessions. The exemptions don’t prolong to therapists, medical doctors or some other grownup recognized to supply confidential counsel.
In Arizona, church attorneys try to make use of clergy-penitent privilege to restrict what its officers need to reply questions on in a lawsuit that accuses them of conspiring to cover-up baby intercourse abuse. A choose dominated this week that church officers needed to reply questions.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and lawmakers from completely different religion backgrounds and either side of the aisle have not too long ago come out in assist of fixing the state regulation exempting clergy from necessary reporting. However such a regulation may face an uphill battle in Utah, the place the church instructions sizeable cultural and political affect, counts an estimated two-thirds of residents as members and depends on volunteers to function clergy members.
Rep. Angela Romero, a Democrat whose efforts to finish the exemption stalled in 2020, mentioned Friday that she remained dedicated to altering the regulation.
“I’m uninterested in making excuses for perpetrators,” she mentioned, noting that her push had not too long ago gained assist from Latter-day Saint Republicans.
Along with Romero and survivors, Friday’s rally additionally included a rabbi and former Latter-day Saints bishop. Stuart Smith, the bishop, mentioned clergy may benefit from clear abuse reporting pointers.
“Such a requirement, codified in state regulation, could have the extra advantage of permitting the helpline for bishops now operated by the LDS church to higher carry out its said function — which is to offer experience and assets to assist the victims of abuse,” he mentioned.
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