In many states, the cult currently enjoys protected communications between elders and between bodies of elders with the Society. By advocating for changes in legislation we can push their secrets into the light without costing privacy of confession for those who do not get emotionally beaten for years as a result of confession.
The fact that elders and COs are not required to keep confessions between the confessor and the confessee is enough of a distinction to create a legal dividing line to determine what communication is privileged.
If elders/COs cannot run things past the Society anymore, their authority structure will crumble in no time. If anything they run past the Society/anyone else becomes unprivileged communication, by their revealing it to a third party, such communication becomes legally exposed to the rules of discovery and they will fall from successful lawsuits.
How clever, AuldSoul! Outstanding. I never thought of it like that. Matter of fact, until I came to this forum, I never thought of it at all. But it's not like the confessor is confiding in a priest (like Catholicism) but rather to a group of men, who in turn can discusss the confessor's deeds ad infinitim amongst themselves. That's not confidentiality. And we all know that some elders DO rat out the guilty parties to their wives. I even witnessed a P.O. describing acts of intimacy between two individuals to a whole congregation during a dF-ing talk....from the podium. I was disgusted by what the P.O. did, not what he described, and my heart went out to the young pioneer sister being dF'd. Of course, the young pioneer bro was only reproved. pfffft!
Frannie