112 lines
5.1 KiB
Plaintext
112 lines
5.1 KiB
Plaintext
|
|
CHURCHES SHIFT ABUSE DEFENSES
|
|
Holding Groups Responsible 'violates religious freedom'
|
|
|
|
By Virginia Culver
|
|
|
|
Attorneys for three local church organizations that recently lost court
|
|
cases involving sexual misconduct by clergyclaim that holding churhces
|
|
accountable for ministers' conduct robs them of their religious freedom.
|
|
|
|
In "friend of the court" briefs filed this month with the US Supreme
|
|
Court, attorneys in two Denver United Methodist cases and a third
|
|
involving Denver's Bear Valley Church of Christ say lower-cour rulings
|
|
making curches liable for ministers' actions violate the First Amendment
|
|
by restricting the churches "free exercise of religion".
|
|
|
|
The attorneys said that telling churches how to "select, assign, supervise
|
|
and discipline clergy, and how religious organizations may conduct their
|
|
administration and how a clergy person does pastoral counseling" violates
|
|
the First Amendment.
|
|
|
|
Questioning how churches operate "directly interferes with the
|
|
institutions' free exercise of religion," the attorneys charge.
|
|
|
|
The legal arguments were filed in defense of the Colorado Episcopal
|
|
Diocese and its appeal of a sexual misco9nduct case. In that case, the
|
|
diocese is appealing to the US Court of Appeals a $728,000 udgment to Mary
|
|
Moses Tenantry. She alleged that a sexual relatinship with her priest,
|
|
the Rev. Paul Robinson, cause her extreme, psychological and spritual
|
|
harm.
|
|
|
|
Tenantry and Robinson became involved when he was an assoicate past of St.
|
|
Philip and St. James Episcopal Church in southwest Denver.
|
|
|
|
A jury awarded her $1.2 million from the diocese in 1991. The diocese
|
|
appeled that decision to the Colorado Supreme Court, which reduced the
|
|
judgment to $728,000.
|
|
|
|
The United Methodist cases, both this year, involved Dianne R. Winkler of
|
|
Aurora and Christa Bohrer of Denver.
|
|
|
|
Winkler was awarded more than $163,000 in January by a Denver District
|
|
Court jury in her civil suit against the Rev. Glenn Chambers, former
|
|
pastor of Grace United Methodist Church in southeast Denver. She alleged
|
|
sexual harassment. Chambers and the church appealed the verdict to the
|
|
Colorado Court of Appeals this month.
|
|
|
|
Bohrer was awarded more than $700,000 in her civil suit in Denver District
|
|
against former minister Daniel DeHart and the United Methodist Annual
|
|
Conference (the equivolent of a diocese). She alleged DeHart seduced her
|
|
into a sexual relationship when she was 13 and he was youth minister at
|
|
First Methodist Church in Greeley.
|
|
|
|
In the Church of Chirst suit in 1992, a Dever woman and her son were
|
|
awarded $450,000 by a Denver Distric Court jury. The woman, who son was a
|
|
minor at the time, claimed the minister, Homer Wolfe, inappropriately
|
|
massaged and fondled him during counseling sessions for five years. That
|
|
case is before the Colorado Court of Appeals.
|
|
|
|
In all three judgements, juries concluded church officials failed to
|
|
properly screen, hire anbd supervise the ministers. All three juries also
|
|
ordered the church or conference to pay at least half the damages.
|
|
|
|
Friend of the court briefs are filed by parties who stand to be materially
|
|
affected by the outcome of a pending decision--in this case, the high
|
|
court's decision about whether to review the Tenantry case. In their
|
|
briefs, the church attorneys threaten to appeal their judgments--to the US
|
|
Court of lAppeals, if necessary.
|
|
|
|
But an expert in constitutional law at the University of Dever said he
|
|
doubts the First Amendment claims will get anywhere.
|
|
|
|
Stephen Pepper, BU law professor, said for the goverment to say how a
|
|
relgious chooses it rabbi or priest "gets into the freedom of relgion."
|
|
|
|
Religious groups do have the right to the free exercise of their
|
|
religion, he said, in all matters of administration, "but if your
|
|
minister hurts someone, you'll have to pay." said Pepper.
|
|
|
|
He called the First Amendment defense "a live issue" that has been used in
|
|
other church cases, particularly those involving discrimination. "It's
|
|
kind of a knee-jerk defense."
|
|
|
|
"But it's pretty hard to defend agaisnst statutory rape and sexual
|
|
harassment," he said.
|
|
|
|
The attorneys filing the friend of the court briefs are Neil Quigley, who
|
|
represented the United Methodists in the Bohrer and Winkler cases and the
|
|
Church of Christ in the third case; and Jim Johnson, attorney for HOmer
|
|
Wolfe.
|
|
|
|
The attorneys say in the briefs that they have been "involved in many
|
|
lawsuits in Colorado for almost ten years where religious institutions
|
|
have had claims against them for sexual improprieties."
|
|
|
|
Devern attorney Joyce Seelen, who represented Tenantry, Winkler, Bohrer and
|
|
the woman who sued on behalf of her sone, yesterday refused to comment
|
|
about the recent briefs. Two others briefs supporting the Episcopal
|
|
diocese and citing the First Amendment argument have been filed with the
|
|
US Court of Appeals.
|
|
|
|
The American Association of Pastoral Counselors, headquartered in
|
|
Virginia, said the lower court "did not understand that pastroal
|
|
counseling and supervision of parish clergy is not the equivolent to
|
|
employment supervision."
|
|
|
|
The other brief was filed by a coalition of Colorado religious groups,
|
|
including Catholics and Protestants.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|