BOBBY Jindal Declines to Take a Stand on Louisiana Religious Liberty Case
By Julia O'Donoghue
As he considers a run for president in 2016, Gov. Bobby Jindal has spent quite a bit of time articulating his concerns about religious liberty in the United States over the last six months. "One of the most important struggles of our time is to stand up for our First Amendment religious liberty rights," he said at the Iowa Republican State Convention in June. The governor has accused President Barack Obama and other Democrats of waging a battle on American religious freedom several times during appearances around the country. He made the issue a central theme of his commencement speech at Liberty University in Virginia this May. It was also the thrust of his talk at the Ronald Reagan library in California last winter. But Jindal, a practicing Catholic, is declining to weigh in on a high-profile legal case involving religious freedom that is happening in his own hometown and involves his own church diocese. A Louisiana Supreme Court ruling could potentially force a priest from the Baton Rouge area to testify about what he was told during private confessions. The court's ruling has revived a lawsuit that was filed by parents of a teen who says she told a priest about being fondled by a male parishioner. The woman, now an adult, said she told the priest on three separate occasions in the confessional booth about the molestation. The Catholic Church tried, unsuccessfully, to block the woman from testifying about her confidential confessions. But the state Supreme Court said if she waived her right to keep her confessions private, the priest "cannot then raise it to protect himself." National Catholic groups, as well as the Diocese of Baton Rouge, have called the decision an attack on religious freedom. "For a civil court to impinge upon the freedom of religion is a clear violation and the matter will be taken to the highest court in the land by the Church in order to protect its free exercise of religion," said the Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge in a statement on its website. The church plans to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary. Priests are at risk of being excommunicated if they reveal what is said in a confession. If he is compelled to testify, the priest would likely go to jail rather than be forced out of the church, according to the Baton Rouge diocese. National experts said they weren't aware of other cases in the country where a priest was compelled to testify about what was said in a confession. "I don't offhand know of another case like this," David Clohessy, executive director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused By Priests, told The Associated Press. When asked for a comment, Jindal's office provided the following: "We haven't followed the details of this case closely. Our heart goes out to victims of horrible crimes of sexual abuse." The governor did get involved in another high-profile religious freedom issue in Louisiana this year. He famously rushed to the defense of "Duck Dynasty" star Phil Robertson after Robertson made controversial remarks about gay people and African Americans in December. When Jindal speaks of the silent war on religion around the country, he often talks about the negative reaction to Robertson's remarks. Still, Jindal also declined to comment on another religious freedom legal battle in the state that came up recently. Parents in Sabine Parish filed a lawsuit alleging that their Buddhist son was being harassed in a public school for not being Christian. "We don't want to comment on this particular case before hearing the defendant's side of the story, but as a general rule, government needs to be very careful before making decisions that restrict any American's religious freedoms," said Thomas Enright, Jindal's legal counsel about that case in February.
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