A California lawyer has filed a ballot proposal that describes sodomy as an “abominable crime” and calls for gays to be “put to death by bullets to the head.”
Orange County attorney Matthew Gregory McLaughlin filed the “Sodomite Suppression Act” on Feb. 26 with the state attorney general’s office, Fox News reported.
The proposal prevents anyone “who is a sodomite or who espouses sodomistic propaganda” from holding public office in California. Those found guilty of spreading propaganda would be fined $1 million and face up to 10 years in prison and a lifetime ban from the state of California.
It also calls for 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.”
In California, any resident can submit a ballot proposal by paying a $200 fee and filling out the right paperwork. Despite the incendiary language of Mr. McLaughlin’s proposal, the attorney general is required to prepare a title and a summary of the initiative and forward it to the secretary of state for a 90-day period of public signature-gathering, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
It is then up to Mr. McLaughlin to gather signatures equaling 5 percent of those who voted in the last election for governor — about 366,000 names in this case — before it can be added to the ballot, Fox News reported. Only the state Supreme Court has the power to keep a measure off the ballot if it violates the California Constitution.
The proposal has gained the attention of several politicians, including state Sen. Ricardo Lara, who sent a letter earlier this month demanding the State Bar of California investigate Mr. McLaughlin. In the letter, Mr. Lara said he was “deeply disturbed that a member of the State Bar would promote such pitiful, evil and hateful sentiments in this proposed initiative,” Fox News reported.
Laura Ernde, communications director at the State Bar of California, told Fox News that the organization is aware of the controversy surrounding Mr. McLaughlin but cannot legally discuss an ongoing investigation.
Source: washingtontimes
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