Proposed Bill Is A Protection,

Not An Attack

(The following letter to Joseph Borst, who wrote a letter to the editor last week entitled “Unwise Legislation,” has been received for publication.)

Dear Mr Borst:

As a former elected official yourself, I would like to think you’d know better than to think the newspaper opinion page is the appropriate place for a debate. However, after last week’s letter, you’ve made it clear you don’t see that as being the case, and I feel compelled to respond.

I have to ask if you have taken the time to read the bill. I can say that I have read the full three pages multiple times, and am positive the word Catholic is not in the bill. This bill is not in any way an attack on the Catholic Church. I know that Catholic churches across the state distributed flyers and spoke at mass about this issue. In doing so, they shared false information and half-truths. I urge you, and all others reading this letter, to visit www.cga.ct.gov, type “5473” into the search box on that page, and read the Judiciary Committee’s substitute language. The Catholic Church is not mentioned.

You also state in your letter that public school teachers are somehow exempt from this bill. That is certainly not the case. Municipal institutions, like public schools, do not enjoy sovereign immunity. In short, they can be sued under current law, and that would not change.

I am not going to address your 800-pound gorilla, because, quite honestly, I find it insulting and disturbing that you would boil down an issue this important to something like that. It is not about bankrupting an organization, and as a member of St Rose, I certainly have every hope that wouldn’t happen. This bill is about protecting children and allowing victims to have their day in court and seek retribution for the actions against them.

To ask our representatives in the legislature to vote against such a bill is asking them to vote against victims of sexual abuse. As someone who has seen firsthand how this abuse can affect people, it disgusts me that anyone would ask them to vote in such a way. If HOB 5473 has not yet been voted on by the time this letter is published, I strongly urge our representatives to support it. This bill is not about the loud shouting of the Catholic Church. It is about the victims of sexual abuse who have remained silent, and deserve a chance to be heard.

Best regards,

Sarah Hemingway

10 Overlook Knoll, Sandy Hook April 27, 2010