HOUSTON (TX)
Houston Chronicle
March 14, 2019
By Robert Downen
Texas nonprofits would be allowed to disclose sexual misconduct allegations against former employees without being sued under a new bill that was filed one month after the Houston Chronicle detailed hundreds of sexual abuses in Southern Baptist churches.
Introduced last week by McKinney Republican Rep. Scott Sanford, House Bill 4345 is the latest in what one expert said is a national wave of similar policies sparked by the #MeToo movement and ongoing religious sexual abuse scandals.
The Texas bill has support from two groups associated with the Southern Baptist Convention, which has been grappling publicly with its own sexual abuse crises since a February investigation by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News found hundreds of Southern Baptist church leaders and volunteers have been charged with sex crimes in the last two decades. The newspapers also found dozens of instances in which church leaders apparently failed to disclose concerns about former employees who applied for jobs at other congregations.
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