On February 26, 2015, the California Attorney General’s Office “Received” The cover letter from Huntington Beach attorney Matt McLaughlin said he had received a proposed initiative for the November ballot that would authorize the mass murder of gay people in the state.
McLoughlin called his proposal the “Sodomy Suppression Act.”
Related:
Kamala Harris was the state’s attorney general.
Dive deeper every day
Sign up to our newsletter for thought-provoking commentary that goes beyond the surface of LGBTQ+ issues.
Harris had just won re-election in a landslide victory in November and had announced her intention to run for the U.S. Senate seat held by Barbara Boxer, who announced her retirement in January, three weeks before McLaughlin’s bill arrived in her inbox.
Now Harris is faced with a hateful proposal that she has no choice but to act: Under California law, the Attorney General has no discretion whatsoever to ignore a properly proposed initiative, no matter how deliberately provocative, discriminatory, or egregious it may be.
The “Anti-Sodomy Laws” encompassed all of this.
And it is prophetic.
What became known as the “Shoot the Gays” movement detailed several steps to eradicate California’s gay population, based on McLaughlin’s interpretation of the Bible.
“Sodomy, also called sodomy, an abominable crime against nature, is a horrible evil which the Almighty God, the giver of liberty and emancipation, has commanded us to suppress, even as He overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, with the threat of utter destruction. [sic]” McLaughlin wrote.
“Considering it better that the criminal should die than that we should all be killed by God’s righteous wrath for our foolishness in tolerating evil among us, the God-fearing people of California wisely decree that any person who willingly touches another person of the same sex for the purpose of sexual gratification should be put to death by a bullet to the head or any other convenient method.”
The proposed bill would prohibit “the direct or indirect promotion of sodomy to minors by any means.” Violators would be subject to “fines and/or imprisonment of up to 10 years, and/or banishment for life from the borders of the State of California.”
McLaughlin added: “No person who practices sodomy or who espouses sodomy, or who belongs to any such organisation, shall be entitled to hold any public office or engage in any public service or enjoy any public benefit.”
As word of this outrageous proposal spread, LGBTQ+ advocates called on Harris to step down from her duties and ignore the proposal, but state law, in place since progressives enacted the “direct democracy” clause in 1911, explicitly requires the attorney general to fulfill his ministerial duties by publishing the title and summary of the hateful proposal.
Harris didn’t accept that.
“It is my pledge to uphold the California Constitution and the U.S. Constitution and to protect the rights of all Californians.” Harris said with the deadline for action looming.“Not only does this proposal pose a threat to public safety, it is patently unconstitutional, completely reprehensible and has no place in a civil society.”
California’s attorney general was the first to seek relief from the oath requirement and petitioned the state Supreme Court to dismiss it.
“If the court does not grant this relief, my office will be forced to publish the title and outline of a proposal calling for the legalization of discrimination and vigilantism,” she said.
There was little chance that McLoughlin would be able to gather the 365,880 signatures of registered voters needed to put the bill on the ballot, and even less that it would be approved by Californians or survive inevitable court battles if it passed.
But those same voters had defied odds before: On the night that Barack Obama was elected America’s first black president, California voters made same-sex marriage illegal in the state.
And some of McLoughlin’s ideas have been widely accepted since he first proposed them.
In Texas, lawmakers have authorized vigilante justice to pursue parents of transgender children seeking gender-affirming medical care, and hundreds of anti-LGBTQ+ bills circulating in Republican-leaning states include a provision that would make LGBTQ+ “propaganda” aimed at minors illegal, building on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ hateful “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
In Russia, the same language proposed by McLaughlin has been enacted by Russia’s authoritarian President Vladimir Putin in a series of laws and decrees aimed at completely erasing LGBTQ+ identity in the country.
And in Uganda, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill adopts virtually all of McLaughlin’s proposals, enacting draconian laws that make homosexuality illegal and making the ultimate penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” the death penalty.
However outrageous it was, McLaughlin’s hateful get-out-the-vote campaign was sadly prophetic.
But in California, Harris used her legal and prosecutorial skills to ensure that an “anti-sodomy law” would not pass without reaching her office.
California Superior Court Judge Raymond Cuddy agreed with Harris that McLaughlin’s measure is unconstitutional, ruling that forcing the attorney general to move forward with the proposal would be “improper, would waste public resources, would create unnecessary division among the public, and would tend to mislead the electorate.”
“This bill is a product of bigotry, it incites violence and is patently unconstitutional and has no place in a civil society,” Harris said in a statement about the decision.
“I applaud the Court’s decision to block the title and abstract, and my office will continue to fight for the right of all Californians to live free from hatred and intolerance.”
Following the verdict, California Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, who came out, said the court “brought a fitting closure to this disturbing case.”
“LGBT Californians should not be threatened, and our initiative process should not be hijacked,” she added. “Let’s hope this is the last time our system is exploited to push the political equivalent of toxic waste.”
The very week the court ruled in Harris’ favor, Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the US presidency.
Nine years later, Harris had a new opportunity to thwart a hijacking attempt and take out the trash.
