It’s outrageous hypocrisy
Even by the low standards of political campaign seasons, the shameless hypocrisy of state Senate Republicans on the issue of child sex abuse this past week was breathtaking.
The same Senate Republican conference that has long blocked revisions to state law that would extend criminal and civil statutes of limitations for child sex abuse victims used Thursday’s primary to rail in apocalyptic terms over allowing parolees, particularly sex offenders, to vote.
The focus of the GOP’S outrage was Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s conditional pardons of about 24,000 parolees to permit them to vote, which the governor says is intended to help integrate them into the society they are returning to after doing their time in prison. Senate Republicans have seized on it as a political issue, noting that some polling places are in schools and painting a scenario of sexual predators roaming the halls.
In reality, sex-offender parolees cannot vote in schools before 7 p.m. They must get written permission from both their parole officer and the school’s superintendent. They must leave the school grounds after voting.
That didn’t stop Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan, R-smithtown, from speculating in a news release Wednesday that “hundreds of sex offenders could show up at schools across the state tomorrow” while after-hours activities are going on. He called on superintendents to deny them entry.
Conspicuously, this comes as New
York Attorney General Barbara Underwood has launched a statewide probe of abuse of children by Catholic clergy and the church’s handling of it. The investigation follows a Pennsylvania grand jury’s shocking report that more than 1,000 children were abused by at least 300 Catholic clergy in that state, which the church covered up for decades. New York district attorneys, including Albany County’s David Soares, have offered to help with Underwood’s investigation.
The church, too, appears to be finally confronting this scandal openly. Albany Bishop Edward Scharfenberger has asked Mr. Soares to investigate how the diocese handled past allegations of sexual abuse by priests. Pope Francis on Thursday met on the issue with U.S. Catholic church leaders, and has summoned bishops from around the world to Rome to discuss it in February.
Even as Mr. Flanagan’s conference rails about purely hypothetical scenarios, it has been doing all it can to shield the church from responsibility for actual past crimes and cover-ups. Rather than pass the Child Victims Act, which would give victims access to civil remedies, and extend criminal statutes of limitations, Senate Republicans proposed using public funds to pay for settlements. And they’ve blocked voting reforms that would allow more people — including parolees — to vote by mail.
To be fair, Senate Republicans are responding to pressure from the Catholic Conference, the lobbying arm of the state’s Catholic bishops. It’s time for the Catholic Conference to stop lobbying on behalf of the inexcusable. And it’s time for the Senate GOP to stop blustering about hypotheticals, and pass a law to give real victims of real crimes a measure of true justice.