by Lew Rockwell, Lew Rockwell:
The Left hates the Church, because the Church threatens the unlimited power the State claims over the citizens that it controls. In Washington, a bill has just passed that requires Catholic priests to report information about child abuse they become aware of, even if this requires revealing what is learned in confession. The Church absolutely forbids this, but this doesn’t stop our new lords and masters. Here are the details: ‘Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson on Friday signed a controversial state law that requires priests to report child abuse to authorities even if they learn of it during the sacrament of confession.
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The measure, introduced in the state Legislature earlier this year, adds clergy to the list of mandatory abuse reporters in the state but doesn’t include an exemption for information learned in the confessional. A 2023 version of the proposal had offered an exemption for abuse allegations learned “solely as a result of a confession.” The latest bill does not contain such a carve-out and in fact explicitly notes that clergy do not qualify for a ‘privileged communication’ exemption. Ferguson told reporters that as a Catholic he was ‘very familiar’ with the sacrament of confession. ‘[I] felt this was important legislation,’ he said on Friday.”
Ferguson is an extreme leftwinger. If you don’t approve of homosexual “marriage,” watch out. When he was the state’s Attorney General, Ferguson filed a suit against an cake maker who refused to make a wedding cake for a homosexual couple: In April 2013 Ferguson filed a consumer protection lawsuit against Barronelle Stutzman and her Richland floral shop Arlene’s Flowers even without a complaint by Robert Ingersoll and his fiance Curt Freed. Ferguson claimed the business violated Washington’s consumer protection law after Stutzman refused to provide flowers for the couple’s same-sex wedding. The attorney general’s office sent Stutzman a letter informing her she was in violation of Washington State’s Consumer Protection Act. A letter by Ferguson called for a penalty of $2,000 and to celebrate all same-sex unions. Stutzman replied that it was against her religious beliefs to do so.”
Of course, there are many other miscreants besides Ferguson. One extreme left group goes further, demanding an end to all religious exemption clauses to so-called “anti-discrimination” laws. “Today, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization, announced that 17 national religious leaders, from California to the nation’s capital, added their names to a historic statement calling for an end to ‘religious refusal’ bills that allow discrimination against LGBT people. ‘Today, leaders from different faith traditions – and from across the country – join in condemning legislation that uses religion to divide people into ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ – bills that can only lead to discrimination,’ said Jeff Krehely, Vice President and Chief Foundation Officer at HRC. ‘By speaking in a unified voice, these leaders are setting an example of inclusion, and sounding the alarm on how these discriminatory bills are harmful to all of society, not just those of us in the LGBT community.’
The extreme left administration of brain-dead “President” Joe Biden had peaceful protestors at an abortion clinic sent to prison in 2024: “Half a dozen pro-life activists on Tuesday were found guilty of violating a federal law that forbids protesters from blocking the entrances to abortion clinics. The U.S. Department of Justice said in a press release that the six defendants in the Nashville, Tennessee, federal trial were ‘each convicted of a felony conspiracy against rights and a Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act offense. The federal FACE Act prohibits ‘violent, threatening, damaging, and obstructive conduct intended to injure, intimidate, or interfere with the right to seek, obtain, or provide reproductive health services.’ It was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1994. The defendants had been charged with a blockade that occurred at the Carafem Health Center Clinic in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, in 2021. The government said in its press release this week that the defendants — Chester Gallagher, Heather Idoni, Calvin Zastrow, Coleman Boyd, Paul Vaughn, and Dennis Green — had ‘engaged in a conspiracy to prevent the clinic employees from providing, and patients from receiving, reproductive health services.’ The defendants will be sentenced on July 2. They ‘each face up to a maximum of 10 and a half years in prison, three years of supervised release, and fines of up to $260,000,’ the Department of Justice said.” Fortunately, President Trump pardoned them: “President Trump signed orders on Thursday granting pardons to anti-abortion activists a day before the annual March for Life rally in Washington. An aide who handed the orders to Mr. Trump to sign described them as relief for some 23 ‘peaceful pro-life protesters. ’They should not have been prosecuted,’ Mr. Trump said in the Oval Office. ‘This is a great honor to sign this.’”
