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A lawyer in California is pushing a ballot measure to legalize killing gay people
A California lawyer proposed a ballot initiative to legalize the execution of gay and lesbian people in the state.
The measure isn't expected to end up on the ballot, since it's clearly unconstitutional, but it's drawing attention to California's bizarre ballot initiative process.
California's attorney general is likely required by law to clear the initiative. But the state's Supreme Court is likely to step in and stop the measure, particularly if the proposal gets enough signatures to qualify for the ballot.
Orange County attorney Matt McLaughlin paid the $200 filing fee on February 26 to submit the Sodomite Suppression Act to voters on November 2016.
The proposal has no chance of becoming law, since it's unconstitutional and would most likely never get approval from California voters, but it's drawn national attention because its provisions are so abhorrent and extreme.
As the San Francisco Chronicle and Sacramento Bee reported, the proposal would require the execution of anyone who touches a person of the same sex for sexual gratification by "bullets to the head or by any other convenient method." It declares that it's "better that offenders should die rather than that all of us should be killed by God's just wrath." Private citizens would be allowed to step in to act as executioners if the state didn't within a year, meaning that the murder of gay and lesbian people would effectively be legalized.
The measure would also make it illegal, with the threat of a $1 million fine, up to 10 years in prison, and permanent expulsion from the state, to advocate for gay rights to an audience that includes minors. And it would require posting the measure's language prominently in public school classrooms.
The initiative specifies that its constitutionality could only be decided by a California Supreme Court that doesn't include LGBT justices and their supporters, but that portion would only be true if the measure passed.
In California, ballot initiative sponsors pay a $200 filing fee for their measure, the attorney general gives it a title and summary, supporters collect more than 365,000 signatures, and, if all that's successful, California votes on it.
California Attorney General Kamala Harris, who's considering a Senate run in 2016, appears to have no options for blocking the measure. Legal experts told the San Francisco Chronicle and Sacramento Bee that the attorney general is required by law to provide a title and summary for proposed ballot measures once someone pays the $200 filing fee.
This setup, legal experts said, prevents elected attorneys general from interfering with citizen-proposed ballot initiatives that they disagree with politically. Instead, more politically impartial judges are able to decide the constitutionality of proposed measures.
The California Supreme Court could, and is, expected to step in to block the proposal if it gets too far in the process. The measure violates constitutional due process protections for people who commit private, consensual sexual activity, and it tries to unconstitutionally limit people's free-speech rights with multiple provisions that would try to stop certain forms of LGBT advocacy.
In the meantime, the measure has drawn criticism from advocates who say the filing fee for ballot initiatives, which hasn't been increased since 1943, is too low. "Increasing the fee, even to $500 or $1,000, would help ensure that those who put initiatives into circulation are sincere in their efforts," Kim Alexander, president and founder of the California Voter Foundation, told the Sacramento Bee.
The newspaper reported a sharp rise in proposed ballot initiatives in recent years: from 47 in the 1960s to nearly 650 in the 2000s.
State legislators are trying to get the California Bar to look into McLaughlin's involvement with the initiative and consider disbarring him.
Lawyers in the state are supposed to demonstrate "good moral character," including respect for the rights of others, California State Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens, Los Angeles County) told the San Francisco Chronicle.
This isn't the first time McLaughlin has proposed a ballot initiative. The Chronicle reported that he suggested adding the King James Bible as a literature textbook in California public schools in 2004 because of its "rich use of the English language." His latest proposal, needless to say, ventures into far uglier territory.
source: vox
read the lawyer's SODOMITE SUPPRESSION ACT here
How very christian of him
