Anything to keep their priests harming kids (not that other christians aren’t just as bad).
“‘Theocrat’ Harmeet Dhillon calls law requiring clergy to report child abuse “anti-Catholic””
May 16, 2025 – FFRF Action Fund’s “Theocrat of the Week” is the Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Harmeet K. Dhillon, for leading a “civil rights investigation” into a newly signed Wash. state law that requires clergy members to report all suspected child abuse without special exemptions. The DOJ accused the law of being “anti-Catholic,” following Trump’s orders to find “anti-Christian bias” and redefine religious freedom in the United States.
Senate Bill 5375 was recently signed into law by Wash. Gov. Bob Ferguson, ensuring that clergy members are mandated reporters of child abuse, with no exemptions, just like teachers, doctors and other reporting professionals. The law importantly requires clergy to report all suspected child abuse to authorities, closing a longstanding loophole that allowed clergy to withhold information about child abuse disclosed in confessional or pastoral settings. Clergy will not be forced to testify in court about anything said during confession — they only have to report to the appropriate authorities when receiving any knowledge of child sexual abuse.
Last week, the DOJ announced that it would launch an investigation into the “development and passage” of SB 5375, alleging that the legislation violates the First Amendment. The DOJ statement reads: “The Civil Rights Division will investigate the apparent conflict between Washington State’s new law with the free exercise of religion under the First Amendment, a cornerstone of the United States Constitution.”
Dhillon, who heads the Civil Rights Division, is quoted in the statement with, “SB 5375 demands that Catholic Priests violate their deeply held faith in order to obey the law, a violation of the Constitution and a breach of the free exercise of religion cannot stand under our Constitutional system of government.”
“Worse, the law appears to single out clergy as not entitled to assert applicable privileges, as compared to other reporting professionals,” continued Dhillon. “We take this matter very seriously and look forward to Washington State’s cooperation with our investigation.”
When alleging that SB 5375 “[singles] out” clergy, Dhillon ignores that clergy members were only mentioned in the bill because they were specifically exempt in the past. Other mandated reporters were never permitted to withhold knowledge of child abuse due to a religious exemption. That is the only reason other reporting professionals were not explicitly mentioned in the legislation.
SB 5375 does not target Catholics or religion; it only serves to protect children. In SB 5375, “clergy” refers to everyone ordained for religious duties in any religion, but confession is explicitly mentioned because of its past privileged status. For its part, the Archdiocese of Seattle said it will excommunicate priests who comply with the new law.
For the rest of the release, click here.
Club Schadenfreude 
Good grief!
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Yup.
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There’s a privilege they want to protect? And go on record to protect? This isn’t lawyer/client privilege, this is telling the clergy to do what they should have done from the start. I guess if you, and all of your clergy buddies are complicit in the molesting of children, only then would you want to protect it. So what kind of moral standard do you really have? The question, from whence does evil come, the answer is religion?
…but we kind of knew that already. This sort of behavior has been there all along if you’ve been paying attention.
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The zinger in this: the sanctity (so-called) of the confessional. What happens there, stays there, has always been the rule. You can confess to murder, theft, anything, and the priest is bound to silence on it. He is, however, not bound to ignore it, and would probably strongly suggest you turn yourself in and say at least two rosaries a day. It isn’t so much complicity as part of the confessiona “ethic”.
I will say this, though: the church jumps through a LOT of hoops to protect its priests, simply by moving those goal posts a bit. We had a priest here who had been reported for molesting altar boys. He was removed from the church, but not from his status, and was sent to another church further away. Nice going, Father….
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that seems to be SOP for the catholic church and often for other christians do, where the pastor just up and leaves but starts another church somewhere else.
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As a former Catholic, I’m sadly not surprised.Having the clergy protect children from further abuse (from anyone) by reporting it to law enforcement is simple common sense. Or not, if you’re religious, apparently. I cannot imagine how regular, believing folks are letting this slide, but they do, and pass it off as, “God is perfect, people are imperfect, so what do you expect?” That politicians back up this hipocrisy only adds to the sickness of the system. I’ve given up seeing it change in my lifetime. 😦
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yep, it seems that christians are willing to turn a blind eye to this. Curious how this god does nothing to stop it when “once upon a time”, this god supposedly had no problem in killing people for the slightest wrong. Just like it doesn’t exist.
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I suppose a god who killed a crap ton of babies really isn’t too worried about children being abused. Figures!
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exactly. I’ve used that in arguments with the pro-birth types and they do get upset when I point out that their god has no problem at all with killing kids.
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