by Sol Reform 10 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse
Minnesotan Jehovah Witnesses, - Can you help Jehovah Witness victims of Child Sex Abuse and Non Jehovah Witness victims in your state ?
Please inform your Representative /Senator to pass The Child Victims Act
Minnesota House Bill 681
http://legiscan.com/MN/text/HF681/id/748605
Find your Rep/Senator below.
http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/members/housemembers.asp
http://www.senate.leg.state.mn.us/members/index.php?ls=#header
Minnesotans in new book on Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal
by Sasha Aslanian, Minnesota Public Radio
April 19, 2013
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ST. PAUL, Minn. - As the state Legislature nears a vote on a controversial bill that would give victims of sexual abuse more time to sue, a new book chronicles the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, including some key characters and cases from Minnesota.
Some victim advocates are pursuing legislation to remove statutes of limitations in abuse cases, a step they see as a final frontier in the reckoning they seek with the church.
The Child Victims Act before the Senate would drop Minnesota's statute of limitations for civil suits involving child sexual abuse. The House version would create a three-year window for victims to bring old cases.
In Minnesota, victims of childhood sexual abuse must file civil suits before they turn 24 - a stricter threshold than many states. Four states have eliminated statutes of limitations for these kinds of cases, and three others have opened windows for victims to file.
It's impossible to know how many cases may have been blocked by the statute of limitations, said Michael D'Antonio, author of "Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime and the Era of Catholic Scandal." His book tells the story of sex abuse cases in a Louisiana parish, first coming to light in 1984 and swelling to a worldwide crisis.
Michael D'Antonio
"As of today, it's remarkable to consider that 500 priests in America have been imprisoned," D'Antonio said. "Tens of thousands of victims have been compensated for the crimes committed against them and virtually every diocese in America has been the subject of investigation, legal action and reform."
The Minnesota Catholic Conference referred a request for comment on the bill to the Minnesota Religious Council, which is lobbying against it on behalf of Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopal and Methodist churches.
The council has been fighting attempts to repeal the statute of limitations since 2003, and this year has been the hardest fight yet, said Karen Bockelman, a retired Lutheran pastor and council chair.
"When there's been a lot of public media attention to things like the crisis in the Catholic Church, or more recently in Minnesota, the Shattuck/St. Mary's case, or you know the Penn State and whole Jerry Sandusky thing -- when that kind of stuff hits the media and gets in the air, it's not surprising that it encourages renewed attempts at changing the statute of limitations," Bockelman said.
Bockelman estimates the Minnesota Religious Council will spend more than $180,000 this year lobbying against the bill. It would be costly for churches to defend against decades-old cases that would divert money from carrying out good works today.
"It's the unknown in some ways. You know, it's hard to know hard to react when you don't know exactly what's going to be coming down the road," Bockelman said.
And the picture has changed, Bockelman said. She says for more than 20 years, churches have been improving their response to victims and creating safe church policies to prevent the sexual abuse of minors and adults.
The Minnesota Religious Council is not happy with either the House or Senate version of the bill, and is putting its lobbying efforts into coming up with a bipartisan compromise that Bockelman describes as "more nuanced."
The Minnesota School Boards Association, the Minnesota Child Care Association, the Minnesota Association of School Administrators and the Minnesota Inter-County Association have also testified against the bill.
Leading the charge in favor of the Child Victims Act is the National Center for Victims of Crime. Deputy Executive Director Jeff Dion anticipates spending $95,000 to lobby for the bill. Dion believes it has a very good chance of becoming law in Minnesota.
Dion disagrees that churches and other institutions could face an unknown number of old cases. Most of the evidence is kept by defendants in their own files, he said, and victims deserve to have it heard.
"We're not looking to change any substantive law. It's just a question of -- imagine if you have to get the clerk's office at the courthouse to file your lawsuit by 5 o'clock because that's when the clerk's office closes," Dion said. "We're just saying 'we want to keep the clerk's office open longer so that people have a longer time to file their suit."
The Minnesota Child Victims Act has cleared all the necessary committees, and could get a vote in the full House and Senate later this month.
"I think to bar [victims] from the legal system, especially when that's the only place where they can get the truth about what happened to them, is a terrible injustice," D'Antonio said.
He talks about the book at 4 p.m. Friday at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul. He will also read at noon Saturday at Valley Bookseller in Stillwater. Jeffrey Anderson, a local attorney who is internationally known for suing the church on behalf of victims, will also speak.
I wish you the best in promoting more political activism amongst exJWs and visiting JWs, and hope for the best for children who have been abused and/or molestated to confront those who have hurt them.
Peace be with you and everyone, who you know,
Robert
It's kinda late at night, so you may want to bump this in the morning.
xo
tal
There is a poster on here called Gopher who lives in Minnesota. I don't know about any of the others.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Child sexual abuse victims should be able to seek justice
6 hours ago
(1) Comments
Throughout scripture God asks each of us to protect our children as they are to inherit God's kingdom. In Psalm 127:3 we pray, "Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord." As a priest, I was responsible not only for sharing God's word, but living it.
I was a priest at the Cathedral in Winona when parents from Caledonia, near my home town, came to tell me that Father Tom Adamson had abused their sons and as many as 17 boys within the two Caledonia parishes. I reported Father Adamson to the Bishop of Winona. Father Adamson was eventually moved from Caledonia, but I was shocked to learn he was assigned to a Catholic high school in Rochester. Eventually he was moved to the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis where he served in several parishes and, in every instance, he continued his molestation.
This is just one example of many that illustrates the lengths some church, school and other youth serving organizations will go to hide or cover up abuse. Some institutions have shuffled child predators to other sites, even to other states to shield known abusers from legal action in order to protect the institutions' reputations. Worse yet, some church leaders have used a pretense of providing for a victim while time passes and the statute of limitations for legal action will expire. This ensures they can never be held accountable for their employee's actions. The latter is a tactic known to have been used within the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and made public by the recent $10 million settlement with two survivors of clergy sex abuse.
A change in Minnesota state law is needed to prevent this behavior at the institution level.
Current state law says that children who are abused immediately know they've been injured and accordingly, have until only age 24 to file a lawsuit against the abuser. We know children haven't developed the cognitive skills to understand fully what has happened to them. We need to create opportunities for victims to seek justice, not confine them to arbitrary statutes of limitation that do not take into account the sometimes decade-long healing process.
We have the opportunity to allow victims to heal on their own time frame and still seek the justice they deserve by eliminating the civil statute of limitations for child sexual abuse cases. The Minnesota Child Victims Act currently being heard by the Minnesota Legislature would eliminate the statute of limitation for child sex abuse and allow survivors of child sex abuse to file a lawsuit against their abuser or the institution that negligently failed to report the abuse or actively worked to cover it up, no matter when the abuse occurred.
The Minnesota Child Victims Act provides a common sense solution that will prevent institutions from being able to stall and delay the legal recourse for victims. It will help past, current and future victims of child sexual abuse. It will hold accountable those institutions who delay to avoid a just settlement. It is the least we can do to protect God's gift and our heritage, our children.
Jim Fitzpatrick, an active priest from 1963-1973 in the Diocese of Winona, is currently a retired parish administrator.
Watch LIVE! Follow the MN House's debate on window today (May 1st)
VictimsOfCrime @CrimeVictimsOrg 12m
115 ayes, 7 nays. #MNChildVictimsAct passes with flying colors! Thank you to everyone who worked to bring #victims their day in court!
http://millelacscountytimes.com/2013/05/03/childhood-sexual-abuse-bill-passes-house/
Childhood sexual abuse bill passes House
By ECM on May 3, 2013 at 2:20 pm
by T.W. Budig
ECM Capitol reporter
Rep. Steve Simon, DFL-Hopkins, speaks on the House floor during debate on his childhood sexual abuse victims bill. (Photo by T.W. Budig)
Rep. Steve Simon, DFL-Hopkins, saw his child victims' bill pass the House on a 115-7 vote this week. But it was not without emotional debate.
The high-profile bill deals with childhood sexual abuse and the amount of time victims have in filing legal action.
Childhood sex abuse victims, besides speak of lingering emotional scars, express frustration over existing statues of limitations. As a result of a State Supreme Court ruling, abuse victims have six years after becoming an adult, until age 24, to take legal action. But victims speak of psychologically burying their abuse, the painful incidents not surfacing until later in life.
Under Simon's bill, adult victims of sexual abuse still have the six-year window to file. But in cases of childhood sexual abuse, legal actions may commence at any time. In cases of past abuse, the bill provides a three-year window for victims to take legal action.
"It's limited. It's not forever liability," Simon said.
Rep. Mary Liz Holberg, R-Lakeville, talks with Rep. Ryan Winkler, DFL-Golden Valley, on the House floor this week. Holberg was upset with a childhood sexual abuse bill before the House this week. (Photo by T.W. Budig)
Rep. Mary Liz Holberg, R-Lakeville, found one provision in the legislation galling. It limits the amount of time victims of childhood sexual abuse have to take action against alleged perpetrators when the perpetrator is another minor.
"We have a 'Sophie's Choice' in the bill," Holberg said of the House floor.
By voting for the bill, they're accepting a bad provision. By not voting for the bill, they'll get politically hammered for turning their backs on abuse victims, she argued. Simon should never have brought the bill to the House floor and forced such a vote, Holberg said.
"We get a red or we get a green (vote)," Holberg said of the options.
He was with Holberg in spirit, Simon said, but "I have to count votes."
He had to make "painful and significant concessions," said Simon, in getting the bill through committee. Still, Simon depicted the bill as offering a solution to a lingering problem.
Holberg's motion to send the legislation back to committee failed, and the bill was passed.
Sen. Ron Latz, DFL-St. Louis Park, is carrying companion legislation in the Senate.
As of Friday, May 3, Latz's bill had not yet hit the Senate floor.
Anderson Advocates @AndersonCause 44s
Have you called your senator to support the #MNChildVictimsAct? We have! Help protect children and show support!
http://sol-reform.com/Minnesota/#rep
Watch Senate live take up House File 68; later this afternoon.
