The Trump administration is stepping into a legal battle against the state of Washington over a law that would force clergy members to violate the seal of confession, potentially facing excommunication or prison time and fines. 

Washington’s Democratic governor, Bob Ferguson, signed Senate Bill 5375 into law in May. It requires clergy members to violate the seal of confession if they learn of child abuse during the rite. The law puts clergy members in a position to choose between complying with the government or facing excommunication for violating the confidentiality of confession, in accordance with the Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law. 

The Department of Justice says the law violates the First Amendment and the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The assistant attorney general in charge of the department’s civil rights division, Harmeet Dhillon, said in a statement, “Laws that explicitly target religious practices such as the Sacrament of Confession in the Catholic Church have no place in our society.”

“Senate Bill 5375 unconstitutionally forces Catholic priests in Washington to choose between their obligations to the Catholic Church and their penitents or face criminal consequences, while treating the priest-penitent privilege differently than other well-settled privileges,” she said. “The Justice Department will not sit idly by when States mount attacks on the free exercise of religion.”

The justice department’s complaint contains a motion to intervene in a lawsuit brought by Catholic bishops against the law. The lawsuit states that the law “specifically targets members of the clergy and is not a neutral, generally applicable law that incidentally burdens religion.”

More than half of the states in America list clergy as mandatory reporters of child abuse. The majority, however, have exemptions for confession. Washington joins New Hampshire and West Virginia in not offering that exemption for confession. However, Washington is unique in that it keeps the attorney-client privilege and similar privileges for other professions in place.

A group of Orthodox churches in America is also suing Washington over the law, saying that Orthodox priests may be kicked out of the priesthood if they comply with the law.

Clergy members who do not comply face a penalty of up to 364 days in jail and a fine of up to $5,000.

The Catholic and Orthodox lawsuits both state they do not oppose the idea of reporting child abuse. However, they took issue with forcing them to break the seal of confession, especially while other secular professions retain protections for confidentiality, such as attorney-client privilege. 

A Democratic state senator who sponsored the law, Noel Frame, suggested to NPR that the churches can “change their rules” so that clergy members can comply with the law without facing disciplinary actions.