When California Governor Jerry Brown vetoed SB 131 —an extension to California’s 2003 civil window that would have allowed victims of child sex abuse to come forward, no matter when they were abused—he cited an age-old (and VERY STALE) argument that we hear often from Catholic bishops: “window laws are unfair.”
Tell that to the brave sons of Jay Ram. I believe they will disagree.
When Hawaii passed a civil window in 2012, dozens of children in local Catholic schools and parishes started to come forward. But so did other victims: child victims from the prestigious Kamehameha school who were abused by a school psychiatrist and, most notably, the fostered and adopted sons of Jay Ram.
Vice News follows the story of Jay Ram in their 29-minute documentary LOVE SERVE SURRENDER. In the film, they follow Jay from his time as a hippy guru in Northern California, to a farmer on the Big Island, to a man on the run in Saipan and Florida. Through it all, he fostered and adopted boys and sexually abused them.
Now, those boys are coming forward for justice. And in the process, they are shining a light on a very broken and corrupt system where state social workers and other groups (like Catholic Charities Hawaii) knew there were complaints against Ram, but continued to place boys in his care.
Yet the bishops cry “unfair” … and in the meantime, allow men like Jay Ram to abuse dozens more children across the globe. Pretty shameful, if you ask me.
You can watch the full documentary here:
I’m so fucking agree! I’m from a colt and was sexually abused. I’m very grateful to all the people putting the information out there, it’s not enough! And Why can’t I find anything more about the Jay Rams case!!? Did he ever go the fuck to jail! God damn it!
am not surprised to learn that catholic charities and state authorities and others are complicit in this.
the state exempted itself from the window..
it also tried to keep the window “secret”.. and I know that most child sex abuse victims in Hawaii do not know about the law that ends in a few days..
if the statistics that one in 3 or 4 girls and 1 in 4 or 5 boys are sexually molested by the age of 18.. there has to be thousands of victims of child sex abuse in Hawaii.. yet very few if any females are being validated and vindicated by the law and few males.
thankful of course that a few dozen mostly male are using the window.. yet can’t help but remember that in Jan. 2008 when I proposed legislation it was to remove the statute of limitations child sex abuse retroactively.. and many years later the bill was watered down to a two year hidden window.. and am sure Father Mark Alexander a catholic priest who assaulted young women on his staff. was part of the reason governor Abercrombie vetoed the “Delaware bill” that made it to his desk unopposed by the legislators…i2011..
governor Brown who is an ex Jesuit seminarian, governor Abercrombie,( red mass attendee who tried to sneak 1.5 million dollars to the catholic church to repair a catholic school when the local public school kids have no airconditioning) and countless other politicians and church people appear to ignore separation of church and state and appear to be pawns of the Jesuits/catholic church..
It’s mind boggling to watch as they run over everyone and thing on their way to the bank.