Author of California measure that promoted killing gays thwarted again

Sacramento, Calif. (AP) — A lawyer who wants to make homosexual activity a capital offense in California says the state's top law enforcement officer has for the second time thwarted his effort to put a law before voters that advocates killing anyone who engages in gay sex.

Matthew McLaughlin of Orange County told The Sacramento Bee in an email he was outraged that Attorney General Kamala Harris' office outright rejected a revised version of his "Sodomite Suppression Act" on Wednesday.

"The slippery slope began immediately," McLaughlin said in the email that provided his first public comments about his single-minded and widely renounced campaign. "Harris doesn't even bother to go to court before deciding on her own to toss out my brand new initiative that seeks to change the California Constitution."

A judge relieved Harris last week of the duty to process McLaughlin's original initiative, which would have amended the California penal code to make sex with a person of the same gender a capital offense. Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Raymond Cadei called the measure patently unconstitutional.

McLaughlin resubmitted the initiative as a constitutional amendment, but the attorney general's staff refused to accept it for filing and returned his $200 processing fee, according to The Bee.

"The language of the previous initiative and your most recent proposal are substantively identical," initiative coordinator Ashley Johansson wrote in letter to McLaughlin. "Accordingly, issuing any title and summary of the proposal would be inconsistent with the court's judgment."

Information from: The Sacramento Bee, Sacramento, CA.

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The Gayly – July 2, 2015 @ 6:15am.