From Justice Denied: What happened in Ohio 2005 when lawmakers were about to pass SOL reform? And why would bishops even buy sex abuse insurance?

*****
By Kay Ebeling

Reading JUSTICE DENIED, I have to stop and copy this here with permission of Author Marci Hamilton.

It’s in Chapter Six, page 80, “The Ohio Sleight-Of-Hand.” Someone in a position of authority over Ohio Republican lawmakers as well as Roman Catholic heirarchy needs to investigate. Who else can we go to but our federal legislators?

What happened in Ohio when legislators were about to pass a law opening a window to eliminate the statute of limitations on child sex crimes in the fall of 2005? What happened overnight in closed door meetings that caused the bill to turn into something entirely different?

Behind closed doors, in secret meetings? This is America, not Louisiana under Huey Long.

As described in Hamilton's book quotes below, Catholic lobbyists at least crossed lines of ethics, if not into criminal activity, in Ohio in 2005, and considering the offender is a tax exempt church, the level of amorality and influence peddling is astounding. When people work hard to get to their state capital and testify, they expect the democratic process.

Excerpted here are paragraphs from Justice Denied"

From Chapter Six: “Barrier #2: The Heirarchy of the Roman Catholic Church.”

“The heirarchy of the Catholic Church is no different from any other determined legislative player - if it cannot win on its own merits, dirty tricks will do.

"Survivors of clergy abuse spent two solid years of their lives talking to Ohio legislators, attending hearings, and holding rallies to make the point that child sex abuse survivors deserve SOL reform and window legislation.

“The Senate passed the bill unanimously. But the bishops held the upper hand, and late on the night the window bill was supposed to finally pass in the Ohio house, the bishops succeeded in making the bill disappear.”

ME: THE BISHOPS SUCCEEDED IN MAKING THE BILL DISAPPEAR???

More from JUSTICE DENIED by Marci Hamilton:

“SNAP fought hard in Ohio to get a window passed. The proposed law extended the SOL for all current and future childhood sexual abuse claims, and, like California’s law, opened a one-year window during which the SOL did not apply.

“In the Ohio Senate, the stars aligned for SNAP perfectly.

“I was there the day the Senate passed the window legislation unanimously. March 16, 2005. [Survivor Tony Comes of HBO documentary Twist of Faith] spoke, and senators spoke movingly as did several current Catholic priests who themselves had been abused as children by clergy.

“Survivors filled every available seat, wearing lanyards with pictures of themselves as children. Survivors clapped and cried; it was deceptively easy to believe that the bill would sail through the House as well.

“That did not happen.

ME: THAT IS WHAT THE US GOVERNMENT HAS TO INVESTIGATE:

What happened behind closed doors late that night in Ohoi?

From Justice Denied, continued:

“In the House the opposition began in earnest. I suppose no one will ever know the actual motives of the Chaiarman of the House Judiciary Committee, John Williamowski”

ME: UNLESS WE GET HIM IN FRONT OF A ROW OF SENATORS AND MAKE HIM ANSWER QUESTIONS.

That name was John Williamowski, Republican from Lima, Ohio,

More from Justice Denied:

“[Williamowski] had one meeting after another with survivors, telling them he was on their side, but then he also held meetings with those in opposition, which included the Catholic Conference of Ohio, and Bishop Frederick Campbell of Columbus, [whose] testimony revealed financial concerns, such as the loss of insurance coverage, were playing a role in the Catholic Church’s attack on the legislation.”

ME: THEY GAVE THE APPEARANCE OF DIPLOMACY AND OPEN DEBATE

From Justice Denied, continued:

“SNAP pushed for a public hearing and got one on Nov. 10, 2005.

“Days after the hearing on whether the window was constitutional, on Nov. 22, 2005, there was a second hearing in front of the House Judiciary Committee. Approximately 115 survivors and supporters were in attendance.

“For almost 12 hours, the committee heard testimony from 41 individuals, out of 67 who were prepared to testify.

ME: THIS IS THE ONE WHERE BISHOP GUMBLETON GOT UP AND CAME OUT AS A SURVIVOR OF CLERGY SEX ABUSE HIMSELF.

Plus all those survivors telling heartfelt stories, how could the bill not have passed?

Justice Denied excerpt continued:

“Survivors were hopeful. However, the night the window bill was supposed to pass on the floor of the Ohio House, the Republicans went into caucus and reappeared with a subsitutte bill. The window had disappeared and was replaced with. . ."

******
END OF EXCERPT from Marci Hamilton's new book.

I remember November 2005. A lot of people were wondering on a message board at the time, "Who dropped the ball?" It was too abrupt. It did not add up. Something was not right?

It needs an INVESTIGATION.

Ohio ended up with a totally ineffective bill that no one wanted so it didn't pass, where survivors could hire a lawyer, fight church attorneys, all that just to get a name put on a list of perpetrators.

THE CHURCH WOULD GLADLY VOLUNTEER THE NAMES
of perpeptrator priets and employees to a list,
if the bishops weren't criminals themselves.

The Catholic Church's role in denying justice needs to be investigated.

“So much for fair play when the issue is childhood sexual abuse in Ohio,” writes Marci Hamilton at the end of the Ohio debacle section.

A lot of people say Ohio 2005 is SNAP’s biggest failure. What went wrong?

To Me it is The Ohio Debacle.
What went wrong on the eve of the Ohio House Vote?
How did the Catholic lobbyists get past the advocates and what should be justice at a state lawmaking level?

PLEASE ASK your US Senator and Representative to investigate this kind of back room lawmaker lawbreaking and outright unethical dealings when you approach them about a federal investigation and hearings.

Add it to your list.

THE OTHER EXCERPT

I gotta run this as well as it's so funny, from Justice Denied:

It starts on Page 51, the opening of Chapter 5: Barrier #1, The Insurance Industry.”
Bradley posted this right after the LA settlement in July 2007:
Hamilton quotes blogger Chris Bradley, a Santa Cruz writer who blogs at deeply blasphemous dot blogspot dot com while writing a “blasphemous novel called Simon Peter”

Bradley posted this right after the LA settlement in July 2007:

The key words in the news coverage for me are INSURANCE and then SEXUAL ABUSE INSURANCE.

The Catholic Church in LA has sexual abuse insurance. Sexual abuse insurance.

This is wrong on so many different levels.
The first is that you can buy sexual abuse insurance.
The second is that someone actually bought sexual abuse insurance.

This is just killing me. That there are companies - no, no, companies do nothing, that there are people who said, “Oh yeah we're willing to give you liability coverage in case someone in your institution rapes children.”

ME: RAPES CHILDREN!!!

Bradley blog post quote continued:

We're comfortable making a profit off of helping your institution protect itself from punishments you’d get from systematic child abuse on a monstrous scale and your morally indefensible cover-ups of these crimes.

I mean, even beyond the legality of something like this, the simple morality of it…boggles my mind.

The second part is that the Catholic Church sought out this kind of insurance.

You only get insurance against events you think might actually happen.

REPEAT: You get sex abuse insurance because you know sex abuse is happening.

PLEASE START BUGGING OUR FEDERAL
US REPRESENTATIVES AND SENATORS

Investigate this. Why did they get insurance for the sex crimes unless they knew the sex crimes were taking place?.

Again the above quote is from deeplyblasphemous dot blogspot dot com and the book excerpted is Justice Denied.

From cover to cover, Marci Hamilton's new book is full of cogent arguments and talking points that would convince any lawmaker that we need to abolish the statute of limitations on sex crimes nationally.

MAKE THE LAW universal from state to state.

Me, I'm a living argument myself for eliminating the statute of limintations. Here I am in LA writing about all these people who are victims of the same crimes as me, getting settlements.

But I can’t get one because my rapes took place in Illinois.

Is that equal protection under the law?

Deals made behind closed doors like the one that defeated SOL legislation in the Ohio November 2005?

Back room agreements that blatantly go against what has been agreed to through public meeting and the democratic process?

Someone needs to investigate, let’s hope a new US Congress in 2009 will want to uproot this kind of corruption and replace it with a government of integrity. Hopefully hearings into the Sex Crimes in the Catholic Church will be part of that change,

Onward. . .