California Catholic groups urge Legislature to fix bill and protect all minors from sex trafficking – Detroit Catholic

(OSV News) ─ California Catholics are calling on state lawmakers to include all minors in legislation that would make it a crime to purchase or solicit a child for sex, after the Senate Public Safety Committee limited the bill for those aged 15 and under.

Under current California law, purchasing or soliciting a child for sexual purposes is a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in prison and a $10,000 fine. Senate Bill 1414 would impose harsher penalties on these offenders: would make it a misdemeanor to solicit or engage in commercial sex with a minor, with a maximum penalty of up to four years in prison and a fine of $25,000.

The original bipartisan legislation, led by Sen. Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, would have applied to all minors; However, the Senate Public Safety Committee amended the bill to give courts discretion on whether such crimes would be misdemeanors or felonies and limited it to crimes involving the purchase of minors under the age of 16 years old.

Critics of the original legislation argued that it was too broad, a claim Grove disputed. She argued the committee was seeking to “water it down.”

“The crime of purchasing a child, regardless of age, for sexual purposes in the State of California should be a jail felony,” Grove wrote in a May 23 post on X, formerly Twitter, after the Senate unanimously approved the amended bill.

Grove called on the Assembly to restore SB 1414's original intent to protect all minors when that chamber passes the legislation — a view echoed by Catholic groups.

“Many people are shocked to hear about SB 1414, assuming that if something is a crime in California, purchasing a child for sexual purposes certainly must be,” said Director Kathleen Domingo. executive of the California Catholic Conference, to OSV News. “Yet this bill has only just made its way through the Legislature, thanks to the tireless efforts of Senator Shannon Grove.”

The state's Catholic bishops, Domingo said, “join their voices with lawmakers and other state leaders to advocate that all children under the age of 18 deserve our protection.”

“No child is able to consent to their own violation,” she said. “The State of California must protect children from sex trafficking by passing SB 1414 for all children, with the highest penalties for violators.”

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles urged its supporters to contact their lawmakers to support the original version of the legislation.

“We encourage passage of this bill and the restoration of protections for all minors, including felony charges and sex offender registration,” their action alert states, adding: “Young people deserve to be protected from this violence.

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Kate Scanlon is a national reporter for OSV News covering Washington. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) @kgscanlon.