Religious Staff Must be Accountable for Sex Crimes
The First Amendment’s religious liberty provisions do not shield houses of worship from liability when their staff members or volunteers commit crimes, Americans United for Separation of Church and State has told the Nevada Supreme Court.
Americans United and several other organizations filed a friend-of-the-court brief Dec. 11 in Nevada’s top court asserting that point.
The case in question, Ramani v. Segelstein, deals with a woman who says she was sexually assaulted by a cantor at her synagogue after a service. When she reported the assault to the head rabbi, he allegedly ignored the complaint and proceeded to solicit her for sexual favors.
“The principle of religious liberty must not be sullied by making it a shield for criminal activity,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “The First Amendment was never intended to be interpreted that way.”
In the brief, Americans United and the other organizations take issue with claims made by the Roman Catholic Bishops of Las Vegas and Reno and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), which argue in their brief that religious organizations should be immune (except in very narrow circumstances) when their employees or volunteers commit crimes like sexual assault.
The brief filed by AU and others states that the bishops and the LDS church are essentially arguing “that religious entities can harm others without accountability and that somehow the First Amendment operates to create a special, religious enclave of those who must be permitted as a constitutional matter to be unaccountable for the harm they inflict.”
Many courts, the brief asserts, have rejected this argument.
“When an employer becomes aware (or should be aware) of behavior that may be harmful and does nothing – or exacerbates the harm as in [this case], the organization should be held liable for the injury that it had the unique ability to avoid through control of the employee or servant,” observes the brief.
The brief also argues that the fact that a house of worship’s clergyperson may have acted as an unpaid volunteer does not automatically shield the house of worship from liability.
“Exempting volunteers from normal agency law simply does not comport with well-settled agency doctrine, or the protection of the vulnerable,” argues the brief.
In addition to Americans United, organizations signing the brief include the Jewish Board of Advocates for Children, Inc.; Survivors For Justice; the National Black Church Initiative; Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests; the National Association to Prevent Sexual Abuse of Children; Child Protection Project; the Foundation to Abolish Child Sex Abuse; the Cardozo Advocates for Kids; Sexual Violence Legal News; Children’s Healthcare is a Legal Duty and Americans Against Abuses of Polygamy.
The brief was written by Professor Marci A. Hamilton, who holds the Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University.
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I must comment on the misrepresentation of the law given below. The fellow who commented below does not understand agency law . A company is held accountable when their employee gets in a wreck if the pizza driver was within his "scope of employment." The test to whether or not a company is liable is the "scope of employment" test. That is why a company is never responsible for its employee when they rape someone on the job.
You are right. It is incredible that this is even an issue that we would hold churches to a higher standard than companies. Especially noting that churches are usually volunteer organization with no professional staff.
Before you comment on the law study it. Misinformation is why we get laws like this that hold churches responsible for the crimes and not the actual perpetrator. In all honesty, all these laws do is hold organization responsible not the actual rapist. Lawyers end up suing the LDS or catholic church and never go after the rapist. All those preachers who molested children were never punished because lawyers got their money and did nothing to solve the actual problem. That is the truth.
Are these the same people who believe that morality doesn't exist without god ? Of course these perverts should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law .If someone professes to be saved through Jesus and commits a heinous crime toward someone who is not saved will the person who committed the crime go to heaven while the unsaved person burns in hell? Just curious about that.
Should be accountable for their crime . Period.
Be they a priest or a film -maker.
The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.
If the pizza delivery guy wrecks your car, the pizza company is liable. If the real estate agent misrepresents something about a house , the real estate company is liable. If a doctor cuts off the wrong leg, the hospital is liable. If an employee is sexually harassed at work, the company is liable.
In all of the above examples, it would be fantastically rare to find anything even vaguely approaching the level of complicity that has been documented on church rapists.
Among other considerations there is what is called a "duty of care". You screen people to make sure they don't have a criminal history, you call their former employers for references, you interview people who know them and can vouch for their character. You supervise them and set things up to avoid the kind of circumstances where potential victims are left alone with potential rapists.
Churches aren't exempt from zoning laws, building codes or fire regulations . Violations will get them shut down as fast as any retail business on mainstreet.
NOBODY should be raped in chruch. Of all places one might go, it should be one of the safest. As it is, a woman or child would be safer walking through Hell's Kitchen in NY City at midnight.
More incredible than anything else about this situation is there are actually people who claim to be moral, that will continue to support a church that claims in open court it's clergy should be allowed to rape women and children , with no accountability whatsoever. How do they put it? By their works shall you know them? Something like that.
I agree completely.
The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.