WISCONSIN
Green Bay Press-Gazette
By Andy Nelesen
anelesen@greenbaypressgazette.com
Clergy and churches would lose their shield to civil liability for sexual abuse under a law proposed by a local state senator and endorsed by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
At a press conference Thursday, Peter Isely, the group’s Midwest director, threw his group’s support behind the initiative introduced by state Sens. Alan Lasee, R-Rockland, and Timothy Carpenter, D-Milwaukee, that would allow priests, pastors and churches to be named in civil suits seeking damages for abuse.
Lasee’s bill and a companion Assembly measure would allow a one-year window for victims to file civil claims of abuse. Currently, Wisconsin law prohibits civil claims against clergy and their supervisors, Isely said.
“We are the only state that utterly and completely immunizes sex-offender clergy and their supervisors from any civil accountability,” Isely said. “This has made our state the safest place for sex-offender clergy in the United States.”