California Attorney General Kamala Harris
California's experiment in direct democracy has had debatable upsides and downsides, but it's hard to find much that's more objectionable about it than the life it has given to a proposal
calling for the execution of gays.
The Sodomite Suppression Act, filed by southern California attorney Matt McLaughlin, calls for lesbians and gays to be "put to death by bullets to the head or any other convenient method."
Seeing that it is better that offenders should die rather than that all of us should be killed by God's just wrath against us for the folly of tolerating wickedness in our midst, the People of California wisely command, in the fear of God, that any person who willingly touches another person of the same gender for purposes of sexual gratification be put to death by bullets to the head or by an other convenient method.
Yet another view into the dark underbelly of ignorance. The problem is, because this loser followed the rules and paid his $200 fine, now this blatantly unconstitutional proposal has to be processed with some degree of seriousness. Apparently California Attorney General Kamala Harris—who is very pro-LGBT—can't simply quash it.
The Legislature’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Caucus wrote a letter to the State Bar, asking for an investigation into McLaughlin’s fitness to practice law. More than 3,800 people signed a petition to State Bar President Craig Holden asking that McLaughlin lose his law license for advocating to “legalize the murder” of gays and lesbians.
Yet the measure is likely to proceed to the signature-gathering stage. At the moment, its fate rests with state Attorney General Kamala Harris, who is charged with writing a title and summary for the proposal. Legal experts say she has little choice but to let the process continue and that McLaughlin is unlikely to face professional repercussions.
The chances of this stain on our collective conscience ultimately making it to the California ballot seem pretty slim. Even if it is approved by the attorney general, it will still need 300,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot and it's pretty hard to imagine canvassers trying to sell this thing.
But the question is, shouldn't someone be able to put a stop to a ballot measure that calls for execution-style homicides without it being left up to the fate of the signature gathering process? While some are calling for reforms, others says it's important that the attorney general not have discretion, otherwise she or he could simply derail any ballot proposal that wasn't to their liking.
The attorney general's office is reportedly researching whether to file a lawsuit to stop the measure from proceeding on the basis that it is unconstitutional.