A discussion for a proposed new law in which the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) is specifically modified to include American religious workers.

At present, religious workers are excluded from TVPA protections by the ministerial exemption legal doctrine in America. The ministerial exemption frees religious groups from secular employment laws and, as such, has allowed religious abuses to become abusive, fascist, and quite cruel. 

In Headley v. Church of Scientology, Judge Dale Fischer refused to give the Headley’s the protections of the TVPA. Instead, Judge Fischer took the lazy way out and allowed the Scientology Cult to argue that “ministerial exception” disqualified religious workers from the protections of the TVPA.

By her ruling in the case, Judge Fischer allowed immeasurable suffering and exploitation to be inflicted upon religious workers across America. Judge Fischer is, in our opinion, a judicial terrorist whose ruling in this case, we think, was so deeply flawed as to suggest a dangerous ideological position that is not rooted in justice.

The Harvard Law Review on Headley v. Church of Scientology: 

Closing a Loophole: Headley v. Church of Scientology International as an Argument for Placing Limits on the Ministerial Exception from Clergy Disputes by Molly A. Gerratt: