SAN FRANCISCO – California Attorney General Kamala Harris says she is asking a state court for permission to not authorize a proposed ballot initiative that advocates putting to death anyone who engages in sex with a person of the same gender.
Harris issued a statement Wednesday calling the so-called Sodomite Suppression Act both "patently unconstitutional" and "utterly reprehensible." A Southern California lawyer, Matt McLaughlin, filed the citizen's initiative late last month.
The attorney general's office issues official titles and ballot summaries for proposed ballot initiatives before their sponsors are allowed to circulate signature petitions to qualify their measures for the ballot. Under California's initiative process, state officials do not have authority to refuse to process initiatives they find objectionable.
Harris says that unless a judge rules otherwise, she will have no choice but to move McLaughlin's measure through the normal channels.
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