Wash. Clergy Charge Jeff Sessions With 'Child Abuse'

TACOMA, WA - A Tacoma pastor is leading more than 600 United Methodist Church clergy and laity from around the U.S. in accusing Attorney General Jeff Sessions of breaking church law by enforcing a policy of separating parents from their children at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Rev. David Wright, a chaplain at the University of Puget Sound, told CNN Tuesday the group does not want Sessions to be expelled from the church - but they want Sessions to bring his policy choices "in line with the church's doctrines and social principles."

"Mr. Sessions’ unique combination of tremendous social/political power, his leading role as a Sunday School teacher and former delegate to General Conference, and the severe and ongoing impact of several of his public, professional actions demand that we, as his siblings in the United Methodist denomination, call some degree of accountability," the members of the church wrote in a letter.

The letter suggest Sessions be charged under the church's 2016 United Methodist Book of Discipline. Specifically, the clergy and laity say Sessions has committed child abuse, racial discrimination, immorality, and dissemination of doctrines contrary to the standards of the United Methodist Church

With regard to the child abuse accusation, Sessions advocated and implemented "practices that indefinitely separate thousands of young children from their parents; holding thousands of children in mass incarceration facilities with little to no structured educational or socio-emotional support," according to the complaint letter.

Sessions attends the Ashland Place United Methodist Church, in Mobile, Ala., and Clarendon United Methodist Church, Arlington, Va.

Outcry over the Trump administration's new "zero tolerance" policy on separating families has only grown stronger in recent weeks. Sessions supports the policy, last week quoting a Bible passage to justify it. Trump has said that Congress has to pass a law to fix the situation.

In addition to Wright, the following Puget Sound clergy are backing the effort to charge Sessions:

• Rev. Kelly Dalhman-Oeth, Ronald United Methodist Church, Shoreline
• Rev. Terri Stewart, Riverton Park UMC, Tukwila
• Elaine Marston, Pacific Northwest Conference
• Becca Brazell, Pacific Northwest Conference
• Rev. Stephen Tarr, Bellevue First UMC (ret.)
• Rev. JoDene Romeijn-Stout, Sunrise UMC, Federal Way
• Rev. Paul Mitchell, Vashon United Methodist Church
• Rev. Katie Stickney, Redmond UMC
• Rev. Dr. Joanne Carlson Brown, Tibbetts United Methodist Church, Seattle
• Rev. Nico Romeijn-Stout, Sand Point Community United Methodist Church, Seattle
• Rev. Sharon Moe, First UMC, Tacoma

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