Law Commons^™

Sexual Misconduct And Ecclesiastical Immunity, Ira C. Lupu, Robert W. Tuttle

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This paper critically analyzes the possibility and structure of First Amendment defenses to actions, both private and public, arising out of sexual misconduct by members of the clergy. Part I traces the expansion of relevant theories of tort and criminal liability, and the waning of immunities, constitutional and statutory, that once applied to such actions. Part II of the paper advances a normative theory of the constitutional distinctiveness of religion, and ties that theory to the possibility of ecclesiastical immunity. Most conceptions of such immunity represent assertions of the liberty of religious organizations, and are grounded in the Constitution's Free …