Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

DARRYL DYCK
California Love

California could* have to vote on making executing gay people legal

*But it’s unlikely to make it to the ballot.

A LAWYER IN the US state of California has made an application to have executing gay people legalised in the state.

The proposal – unlikely to advance to the ballots as it requires over 360,000 signatures to proceed – was submitted by attorney Matthew McLaughlin to the California Attorney General’s office last month.

“The abominable crime against nature known as buggery, called also sodomy, is a monstrous evil that Almighty God, giver of freedom and liberty, commands us to suppress on pain of our utter destruction even as he overthrew Sodom and Gomorrha,” reads the proposal, registered for comment on the attorney general’s website.

The Sodomy Suppression Act would make homosexual acts illegal in the famously liberal state, under pain of execution.

It adds that it would be better for all gay people to be killed than for the world to face God’s wrath and says this should be done by gun fire.

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 any other convenient method.

The law would make it illegal to be gay, transmit “gay propaganda” or serve in public office as a gay person.

McLaughlin, who submitted the “Sodomite Suppression Act” ballot initiative proposal with the required $200 fee, was not immediately for available for comment when contacted by AFP. Even if passed onto the ballot, then by public vote, the law would almost certainly be deemed unconstitutional.

State legislators are reportedly looking into McLaughlin with a view to having him disbarred. Lawyers in the state are bound to show “good moral character”.

California, like other US states, regularly holds elections on ballot initiative — effectively referendums on proposed issues which must gather a minimum number of signatures to get on the ballot.

Read: ‘From a very young age, I knew I was the same as a murderer or rapist’

Read: Inside the 25-year fight to let Irish LGBT people march in New York on Paddy’s Day

Your Voice
Readers Comments
165
    Submit a report
    Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
    Thank you for the feedback
    Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.