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The Trump administration is suing the state of Washington over a law meant to curb child abuse.
Earlier this year, the state passed a law requiring clergy members of various faiths to report suspicions of child abuse. The Catholic archdiocese of Seattle sued over the law, claiming that it could force priests to reveal information learned in confession.
Now, despite the fact the law doesn’t specifically target Catholics and has the support of the governor, who is Catholic, the Trump administration is attacking the law as “anti-Catholic.” The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, led by right-wing lawyer Harmeet Dhillon, is moving to intervene in the lawsuit, arguing that requiring Catholic priests to report suspicions of child abuse — in the same way other clergy members would be required to do in Washington — is unfair to Catholics.
In its filing, the DOJ claims the law, set to go into effect in July, “deprives Catholic priests of their fundamental right to freely exercise their religious beliefs, as guaranteed under the First Amendment.” The filing states that because “punishment for directly violating the sacramental seal of Confession is excommunication ... a more direct burden on the exercise of religion would be difficult to imagine.” (The local archbishop has already threatened to excommunicate any priest who follows the law and violates the confessional.)
The bill’s sponsor, Democratic state Sen. Noel Frame, said she was motivated to create the bill following reports that Jehovah’s Witnesses covered up child sexual abuse for years. Multiple states also have similar laws that require Catholic priests to report child abuse claims received in confession.
The DOJ lawsuit is the latest of several moves by the Trump administration that stand to harm efforts to combat child abuse. Earlier this year, the administration stripped federal funds from a program that provides legal advocates to victims of child sex trafficking, as well as dissolved a Justice Department unit that’s been instrumental in investigating allegations of child sex trafficking.