A bill meant to criminalize clergy from engaging in sexual relationships with parishioners they counsel will not advance this year.
From Sen. Dave Min, D-Irvine, the bill sought to bring California in line with several other states that have included clergy and religious counselors among the list of people — like physicians, psychotherapists and certain counselors — prohibited from engaging in sexual acts with a patient or client. It said consent could not be a defense for clergy members accused of sexual battery and established misdemeanor and felony charges.
“Religious leaders are given an incredible amount of authority — moral authority and actual authority — in temples or churches or mosques over their congregation,” Min previously said. “You see religious leaders as a conduit to God, giving confession to them, sharing your deepest secrets to them.”
“If you have someone who is acting as a voice of God, and is representing themselves in a place of power in a church or temple as being a conduit or vessel through which God’s voice speaks, that’s not really consent,” he continued. “You can’t consent to an intimate relationship under those circumstances.”
The bill died in the Senate Public Safety Committee last month after a hearing during which adult survivors testified about the abuse they suffered by clergy who were supposed to be counseling them. Committee members did not publicly discuss the bill then, and it was “held in committee,” which means it does not have enough yes votes to advance.
A spokesperson for the committee’s chair, Sen. Aisha Wahab, D-Silicon Valley, did not respond to requests for comment.
“The way this bill was handled is the very reason victims of sexual assault do not come forward — because their voices are silenced or minimized,” said Lucy Huh, an Orange County resident and Ph.D. candidate researching abuse in religious contexts.
“The bill didn’t receive a fair hearing,” Huh said. “Many survivors and supporters from across the U.S. wrote support letters explaining the critical need for this bill, that were submitted through the California Legislature portal. For whatever reason, these letters were disregarded by the Public Safety Committee and not acknowledged in the bill analysis.”
An analysis of the bill lists support from only one “private individual” as well as the Baylor Adult Clergy Sexual Abuse, Advocacy and Research Collaborative; Freedom and Fashion; Pearls and Swine; Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests; and the Hope of Survivors.
ACLU California Action and the California Public Defenders Association are listed in opposition.
Min’s office declined to comment for this story, but during the hearing, the Irvine senator said he “found this process very frustrating,” alluding to conversations with Wahab about ways to amend the legislation to make it more palatable.
Since that April hearing, advocates for the bill have reached out to Gov. Gavin Newsom, asking for a meeting and help with the bill.
“We believe that clergy should be held to the same standards expected of those who work in other helping professions, like psychology, social work and medicine,” members of SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said in a letter to the governor.
A spokesperson for Newsom said the governor generally does not comment on pending legislation but did not respond to questions about the advocates’ letter by Friday afternoon.
In the bill analysis, the CPDA said the bill is unneeded to “prevent nonconsensual sexual contact between a member of the clergy and an adult congregant because existing law already criminalizes non-consensual sexual contact between two people, regardless of their relationship.”
Survivors and advocates who worked on this bill said they would continue to push it next legislative session.
In other news
• As campus demonstrations calling for an end to the Israel-Hamas war and for schools to cut financial ties with certain Israeli companies continue, legislative Republican leaders want to see funding stripped from college administrations where violent protests have occurred. In a press conference last week, GOP Assembly Leader James Gallagher said students committing violent acts or “violating other people’s rights” should be stripped of their Cal Grant financial aid.
• As part of an effort to crack down on the opioid epidemic, legislation laying out how social media companies should work with law enforcement advanced unanimously out of the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.
Sen. Tom Umberg, D-Santa Ana, said drug traffickers can use social media, like Snapchat or Instagram, to sell drugs, and social media companies should “be more proactive and communicative in their enforcement of their terms of service, which should include being responsive to law enforcement agencies investigating crimes on their platforms.”
• A bill from Min that would prevent local governments from enacting their own voter ID requirements in local elections got the OK from the Senate Local Government Committee last week. Voters in Huntington Beach approved a measure in March that could require voters to start showing ID when participating in municipal elections in 2026. The state is suing Huntington Beach over the measure.
