Remember that guy in California who filed a ballot initiative (that came to be known as the “Sodomite Suppression Act“) requesting the mass execution of all gay people?
For only $200, Orange County lawyer Matthew McLaughlin filed a ballot initiative back in March with the following instructions:
“The People of California wisely command, in the fear of God, 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 any other convenient method.”
“The text shall be prominently posted in every public school classroom,” the proposal notes, adding, “All laws in conflict with this law are to that extent invalid.”
Thankfully, the fear of God doesn’t scare Superior Court Judge Raymond M. Cadei, who tossed the initiative yesterday on the grounds of its egregious unconstitutionality.
“Any preparation and official issuance of a circulating title and summary for the Act by the Attorney General would be inappropriate, waste public resources, generate unnecessary divisions among the public, and tend to mislead to the electorate,” said Cadei’s decision.
When the measure was first proposed, State Attorney General Kamala Harris also filed a lawsuit to block it.
“This proposed act is the product of bigotry, seeks to promote violence, is patently unconstitutional and has no place in a civil society,” Harris said in a statement to BuzzFeed News. “My office will continue to fight for the rights of all Californians to live free from hatred and intolerance.”
Harris had intervened after national uproar over the initiative. In seeking judgment that the measure is unconstitutional, Kamal’s office wrote the initiative “would purport to make it a capital offense to engage in conduct the United States Supreme Court has made clear the government may not criminalize at all,” citing the high court’s 2003 decision that struck down Texas’ sodomy ban.
2015. It is 2015, and a lawyer from the state of California drew the attention of the country to demand every gay person be lawfully shot in the head. This never stood a chance to begin with, but the fact that the justice system had to waste its time to say so is truly upsetting.
(Image via Shutterstock)
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