You may have heard of Jehovah's Witnesses, a small group of people who go door-to-door and talk about God. However, there's much more than meets the eye about them. They are, in fact, a highly centralized hierarchical religious order, with their headquarters (and all of their directives) coming from a group in New York called the Governing Body.

A current investigation in Australia shows that they have hidden the names of over 1,000 child molesters in Australia since 1950. You can find more information here.

As the investigation found, they did this based on the directives from the Watchtower Society, which provides the same directives worldwide to all of their branches. That includes the United States.

The Watchtower has already been found liable by the court system for covering up sexual abuse, as can be found here.

They have also hid behind First Amendment protections to prevent information to be revealed by the public, as you can see here.

They also have complete non-profit status, despite currently building a billion-dollar facility in Warwick, New York.

For these reasons, I'm calling upon New York Senators Charles Schumer, Kirsten Gillebrand and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (as well as my home state senator Tammy Baldwin) to investigate Jehovah's Witnesses for their continued practice of hiding sexual abusers. I call upon anyone damaged by this hurtful cult to sign this petition so that we can finally start seeing justice for those hurt.

Thank you for your time.

EDIT: New York State has no mandatory reporting laws for clergy when they become aware of sexual abuse. We add to this request to support mandatory reporting laws for all clergy, including Jehovah's Witnesses.