California AG Asks Court To Allow Her To Reject Virulently Anti-Gay Initiative Measure

Religion News Service reports that California Attorney General Kamala Harris this week asked a state court to allow her to refuse to process a virulently anti-gay (and likely unconstitutional) initiative petition filed in proper form last month with the Attorney General's office.  Harris asked for an order so that she will not be required to issue a title and ballot summary for the proposal which could get on the ballot only if the sponsors were able to collect over 365,000 valid signatures. The initiative measure (full text) is titled the "Sodomite Suppression Act."  It begins by describing sodomy as "a monstrous evil that Almighty God ...commands us to suppress...." Not only would the Act outlaw "sodomistic propaganda" and bar "sodomites" from public office and public employment, but it also calls for "death by bullets to the head or by any other convenient method" for anyone who "willingly touches another person of the same gender for purposes of sexual gratification." The punishment for distributing sodomistic propaganda would be a $1 million fine, 10 years in prison, and/ or expulsion from the state of California.