Would You Sign My "Kill the Gays" ballot proposal?

KTC · Mar 27, 2015

Sometimes I think killing all the bigots is the best answer. Fuck him all to hell.

Amadan · Mar 27, 2015

KTC said:
Sometimes I think killing all the bigots is the best answer. Fuck him all to hell.

That will end well.

Gilroy Cullen · Mar 27, 2015

benbradley said:
For what it's worth, Georgia also has the equivalent legislation floating around, I don't know what the current status is, but if it passes I suspect the conservative Republican Gov. Nathan Deal would sign it.

What I hope is that Coca Cola does the same thing to Georgia that this Salesforce Inc, and GenCon, is doing to Indiana. Sign that bill and we're GONE. Imagine that blow to the state.

nighttimer · Mar 27, 2015

Diana Hignutt said:
"It came true, you're looking at it." - The Comedian, Watchmen

Sad, but true.

KTC said:
Sometimes I think killing all the bigots is the best answer. Fuck him all to hell.

I understand the anger, but I can't agree with the "solution."

All an eye-for-an-eye does is leave everyone blind.

If we don't want darkness to descend on our country, the best solution is drag the bigots kicking and screaming into the light; from a nobody ambulance chaser in California to the governor of the state of Indiana.

Shame on them.

KTC · Mar 27, 2015

Amadan said:
That will end well.

Yeah. I wasn't serious. Der. Just frustrated.

TerryRodgers · Mar 27, 2015

nighttimer said:
No, my ballot proposal will be to arrest Evil Dick Cheney and send him in leg irons and chains straight to The Hague to face trial for war crimes.

That, or a CIA black site someplace where some large, unfriendly men have a metal chair, a dirty towel and several gallons of water they'd like to introduce Evil Dick to.

Or maybe Gitmo because he doesn't deserve a trial. I'm not choosey. I'm sure Evil Dick will be very popular with the other detainees.

Mr. McLaughlin can keep him company.

Not Gitmo. That was closed down when Obama became president.

How about just throw him in the woods and give the deer the guns. I'd like to see how fast he can run.

nighttimer · Mar 31, 2015

One of Mr. McLaughlin's former bosses kinda thinks he's a dick.

The former boss of the mysterious California lawyer behind a state ballot proposal that would mandate executing gay people said on Tuesday that he hopes the public would show no mercy on his old employee.

“Go after him with a knife and fork,” Bruce C. Bridgman told TPM when reached by phone.

Now semi-retired, Birdgman heads a firm, The Law Office of Bruce C. Bridgman, that in 2002 briefly employed Matthew Gregory McLaughlin, who has been unreachable since news broke of his now-infamous "Sodomite Suppression Act."

"My own personal opinion here is that he has crossed the line, between free speech and advocating illegal conduct," Bridgman, a former deputy district attorney for both Los Angeles and Orange County, told TPM.

So what was McLaughlin like back during his brief time at Bridgman?

"Unremarkable," Bridgman said. "I wouldn’t recognize him if I were to see him."

He had nothing good to say about McLaughlin, who worked for the firm around 2002, where he was "in and out" for about a month of contract work, according to Bridgman.

He says McLaughlin would have worked on a few civil cases, picking up "overflow" work from other attorneys. He wasn't fired — rather, he simply finished up his work there and departed.

“I’m just embarrassed that this is a member of the bar in the first place,” Bridgman said.

Monkey · Mar 31, 2015

Nighttimer's Link said:
"My own personal opinion here is that he has crossed the line, between free speech and advocating illegal conduct," Bridgman, a former deputy district attorney for both Los Angeles and Orange County, told TPM.

I'm pretty ready to believe this guy's opinion on McLaughlin; I mean, I can't imagine that someone advocating for the wholesale slaughter of a group of innocents would not be an asshole.

I think there's a definite difference, though, between advocating that we change our laws to legally permit something that is currently illegal, and advocating that we just go ahead and do something that is currently illegal.

By Bridgeman's standard, arguing for the decriminalization of anything would be "advocating illegal conduct." That could have a beyond chilling effect on public efforts to affect policy.

I don't think disbarment is the right way to go, unless you could find a way to prove he currently discriminates against protected classes, or is advocating that people go out and kill gays right now, or there's some way to nail him on some sort of hate speech charges or a "moral turpitude" violation. This guy's proposal is so outrageously egregious and so clearly a violation of not only our constitution, but of human rights and basic humanity itself, that the knee-jerk reaction is to say there's absolutely no way this asshole should be working in anything remotely connected to the legal profession. I agree with the sentiment wholeheartedly. On the other hand, I don't want to see a situation where people are punished for bringing up ballot measures or arguing in favor of changing our laws, even if their ideas are repugnant in the extreme.

We must have the freedom to argue for the changes we want to see, no matter how unpopular. I think that goes right to the very heart of our freedom of speech.

And because actually following this proposal IS a violation of our constitution, and we have a strong federal government, there's no way it could ever survive any sort of court challenge. Happily, it ain't gonna freaking happen. This is the ranting of a bigot, but nothing more, and last I checked, that's not illegal.

It can certainly hurt your business, though, and I'm sure this has. We might not need to disbar him - I can't imagine any sane person wanting him to represent them anymore.

C.bronco · Mar 31, 2015

This does show how too many laws prevent those who have the authority, in the finest sense of the word, to exercise good judgement and common sense. Proposal for genocide = No. That would make sense, but the law prevents it.

Authority and Author have the same roots, btw. An authority is someone who has great knowledge of a subject, from one of my dictionary definitions, "Influence resulting from knowledge."

Monkey · Mar 31, 2015

I don't think we should have a system where a ballot measure can't even be proposed if a gatekeeper doesn't like it.

C.bronco · Mar 31, 2015

Proposal is one thing, but having hands tied is another. Should our country approve or entertain a bill that proposes genocide? Nope. Someone has to save the taxpayers money from that which defies our country's mission statement.

Common sense is another issue that isn't addressed in your argument. There has to be room for good judgement. Political correctness can only go so far.

The fella stated his opinion without repercussion. That is a credit to our democracy that he is allowed to share his beliefs. However, they disparage the sanctity of human life. Ergo, do we entertain that or dismiss it? Should we consider genocide as a reasonable option? No. That goes against the principles of freedom that forged our country. Is the onus on us to be crowd pleasers?

Monkey · Apr 1, 2015

C.bronco said:
Common sense is another issue that isn't addressed in your argument. There has to be room for good judgement. Political correctness can only go so far.

And if the gatekeeper's judgement is not your idea of good, then what? The whole point of allowing the public to posit and vote on measures to put on the ballot is that it's the people - not those who are in political power, and certainly not a single gatekeeper who can veto anything put in front of them in the name of their own "good judgement."

The fella stated his opinion without repercussion. That is a credit to our democracy that he is allowed to share his beliefs. However, they disparage the sanctity of human life. Ergo, do we entertain that or dismiss it?

Those on the right often claim that abortion disparages the sanctity of human life.

I've heard people on the left claim that the death penalty disparages the sanctity of human life.

Do we entertain laws allowing abortion or the death penalty? Do we want that call to reside with a single gatekeeper who may base their opinion on their party's preference?

Remember, this isn't about enacting a law. This is a petition to gather signatures to maybe get this put up for a vote, if enough of the population wants to vote on it. If we were talking about something like abortion (which is sometimes called genocide) or the death penalty (which is sometimes called state-sanctioned murder), would you want a single gatekeeper to be able to deny the population the right to even discuss whether or not it should go up for a vote?

Should we consider genocide as a reasonable option? No.

Agreed. And if we, as a population, don't consider it a reasonable option, then this measure will never even reach a ballot where it could even be voted on. Assuming that for some insane reason it DID make the ballot, I can't imagine enough people would support it for it to pass. And if it DID pass (at this point, we're deep in dark fantasy territory,) it would be immediately struck down as blatantly unconstitutional. We, as a people, do not consider genocide a reasonable option. And if the people all lost their freaking heads - well, thank goodness we're a constitutional democracy rather than a straight democracy.

That goes against the principles of freedom that forged our country.

Some on the right say that expecting them to fill birth control prescriptions for their customers goes against the principles of freedom that forged our country - but many on the left disagree.

Some on the left say that forbidding them to marry the person of their choosing goes against the freedom that forged our country - but many on the right disagree.

Certainly, if anything is blatantly against the constitution and basic human rights, it's genocide. I agree that it goes against the freedom that forged our country. However, if we allow a single gatekeeper to keep things from even coming up for a vote based on whether or not they think it goes against "the freedom that forged our country," and "their own good judgement," then again, you're going to have some very valid discussions silenced, and only the gatekeeper's chosen political side will be able to effectively get anything on the ballot at all. That goes directly against the point of allowing people to propose ballot initiatives at all.

Is the onus on us to be crowd pleasers?

Well, that's the democracy side of our constitutional democracy, isn't it? You might find a ballot initiative repugnant, but if allowing people to vote on it is really a "crowd pleaser," then yeah, I think they should get to vote on it. And if it's enough of a "crowd pleaser" to pass that, then the people have spoken - the people of that state want that law, whether or not you would have let it get voted on, were you the gatekeeper. Democracy in action. But there's a caveat. If the law really is against our constitution, it will fall. It can be stayed before it ever goes into effect.

That's the up-side of a constitutional democracy and a strong federal government.

nighttimer · Apr 1, 2015

Monkey said:
I don't think we should have a system where a ballot measure can't even be proposed if a gatekeeper doesn't like it.

We already allow the "gatekeepers" to impose laws that restrict how fast we can drive in a school zone or where we can relieve our kidneys. It's the old "your rights ends where my nose begins" argument.

Freedom does not mean anything goes and every half-baked, half-assed idea does not deserve to be legitimized merely by crying, "It's my right!" At some point common sense and simple decency trumps the individual assertion of whatever I want I should get.

Martin Luther King, Jr. grimly observed, "Never forget everything Hitler did in Germany was legal." King faced a similar legalized evil in segregation. Bad things are frequently hidden in the fine print of legalese including genocide against a despised group.

Mr. McLaughlin is within his rights to be a rabid, vicious, blood-crazed bigot who would like to put bullets in the heads of all the lesbians and gays. He's completely wrong to attempt to pervert the law to do it.

Amadan · Apr 1, 2015

nighttimer said:
We already allow the "gatekeepers" to impose laws that restrict how fast we can drive in a school zone or where we can relieve our kidneys. It's the old "your rights ends where my nose begins" argument.

That's an entirely different gate, and you are willfully conflating them.

Freedom does not mean anything goes and every half-baked, half-assed idea does not deserve to be legitimized merely by crying, "It's my right!" At some point common sense and simple decency trumps the individual assertion of whatever I want I should get.

Yes. That point is the point at which your half-baked, half-assed ideas become more than ideas and actually infringe on someone else's rights. Until then, you are allowed to pontificate, advocate, and even collect ballot signatures.

nighttimer · Apr 1, 2015

Amadan said:
That's an entirely different gate, and you are willfully conflating them.

That's a subjective opinion and opinions can be accepted or rejected. I reject yours.

Amadan said:
Yes. That point is the point at which your half-baked, half-assed ideas become more than ideas and actually infringe on someone else's rights. Until then, you are allowed to pontificate, advocate, and even collect ballot signatures.

Not every half-baked, half-assed ideas should get past the idea state and this is one of them. It isn't necessary to wait until Matt McLaughlin gets his wish and Neil Patrick Harris is blindfolded and backed up against a wall before asking, "Maybe this is crazy and we shouldn't be indulging every crazy person because some purist says we should?"

Might be a bit too late then.

Amadan · Apr 1, 2015

nighttimer said:
That's a subjective opinion and opinions can be accepted or rejected. I reject yours.

No. It's not a subjective opinion.

The "gate" you referred to was specifically the imposition of laws, which requires going through the legislative and executive processes, and then surviving any Constitutional challenges. The "gate" being referred to here is collecting signatures for a proposed ballot measure.

In other words, you are arguing that collecting signatures to put a proposal on the ballot is the same thing as an enacted and enforceable law.

You are arguing that blue is red, that an egg is a KFC bucket, that an idea is a law.

Not every half-baked, half-assed ideas should get past the idea state and this is one of them. It isn't necessary to wait until Matt McLaughlin gets his wish and Neil Patrick Harris is blindfolded and backed up against a wall before asking, "Maybe this is crazy and we shouldn't be indulging every crazy person because some purist says we should?"

No, it is not necessary to wait until Neil Patrick Harris is blindfolded and backed up against a wall before asking that, because the distance between here and there is extremely vast, with an enormous number of checkpoints along the way.

nighttimer · Apr 1, 2015

Amadan said:
No. It's not a subjective opinion.

The "gate" you referred to was specifically the imposition of laws, which requires going through the legislative and executive processes, and then surviving any Constitutional challenges. The "gate" being referred to here is collecting signatures for a proposed ballot measure.

Thanks, but I don't need you to explain to me what I already know.

Amadan said:
In other words, you are arguing that collecting signatures to put a proposal on the ballot is the same thing as an enacted and enforceable law.

There are no "in other words." There is only your erroneous interpretation of my words for which I am not responsible for and see no reason to clarify for you.

Amadan said:
You are arguing that blue is red, that an egg is a KFC bucket, that an idea is a law.

Actually, your lame-ass analogy aside, what I'm arguing is Mr. McLaughlin is a homophobic dirtball who should be disbarred and his former boss agrees with me.

If you want to take on the task of defending a dirtball before the California Bar Association, have at it. I doubt anyone will fight you for that dubious "privilege."

Amadan said:
No, it is not necessary to wait until Neil Patrick Harris is blindfolded and backed up against a wall before asking that, because the distance between here and there is extremely vast, with an enormous number of checkpoints along the way.

Your enormous faith in the system is heartwarming. It really is.

Amadan · Apr 1, 2015

nighttimer said:
Thanks, but I don't need you to explain to me what I already know.

I am explaining how your statements are factually incorrect.

There are no "in other words." There is only your erroneous interpretation of my words for which I am not responsible for and see no reason to clarify for you.

There was no erroneous interpretation.

Actually, your lame-ass analogy aside, what I'm arguing is Mr. McLaughlin is a homophobic dirtball who should be disbarred and his former boss agrees with me.

Argument to (dubious) authority, and also irrelevant. I was not debating whether or not Mr. McLaughlin is a homophobic dirtball or should be disbarred.

If you want to take on the task of defending a dirtball before the California Bar Association, have at it. I doubt anyone will fight you for that dubious "privilege."

I am not defending Mr. McLaughlin. I am defending Mr. McLaughlin's right to propose stupid, offensive, and completely unenforceable laws.

Your enormous faith in the system is heartwarming. It really is.

I do have faith that a bill calling for summary executions of gay people would be found unconstitutional, yes. If we actually get to the point where it's not, then we'll have much bigger problems that California's occasionally silly open ballot system.

Monkey · Apr 1, 2015

nighttimer said:
We already allow the "gatekeepers" to impose laws that restrict how fast we can drive in a school zone or where we can relieve our kidneys. It's the old "your rights ends where my nose begins" argument.

That's not a single gatekeeper restricting what can even be voted on. It's something different altogether. But even ignoring that, the point of your statement seems to be that you don't like these "gatekeepers" limiting what people can do. Isn't that an argument against, rather than for, having a gatekeeper that can limit the issues that can even reach a ballot?

If the issue brought up is stupid or murderous or otherwise terrible, can't we allow the people to be their own gatekeeper and say, collectively, this isn't something we even want on our ballot by simply not signing on to put it there?

Freedom does not mean anything goes and every half-baked, half-assed idea does not deserve to be legitimized merely by crying, "It's my right!" At some point common sense and simple decency trumps the individual assertion of whatever I want I should get.

Agreed that freedom doesn't mean anything goes. There's no way this guy could ever actually make this a law, because it's against the constitution and reason itself.

Agreed that every half-baked idea doesn't deserve to be legitimized - but I disagree that letting him stand in front of a store trying desperately to collect signatures is legitimizing. I feel like the inevitable resounding failure of such an attempt would show him just exactly how illegitimate, backwards, and disgusting the rest of society thinks his proposal really is.

Agreed that people don't get to have everything they want. As I said, this has zero chance of ever going anywhere.

Martin Luther King, Jr. grimly observed, "Never forget everything Hitler did in Germany was legal." King faced a similar legalized evil in segregation. Bad things are frequently hidden in the fine print of legalese including genocide against a despised group.

There are "legal" concentration camps right now in North Korea. Just because something is legal doesn't make it right. But I feel that the system of allowing people to vote on ballot initiatives from the populace is legal and defensible. And as far as fine print and legalese - there's none of that here. This is straightforward, honest bigotry and murderous intent, not veiled behind anything at all, and it's very clear for anyone to see the unconstitutionality of it.

Mr. McLaughlin is within his rights to be a rabid, vicious, blood-crazed bigot who would like to put bullets in the heads of all the lesbians and gays. He's completely wrong to attempt to pervert the law to do it.

Morally, I agree.

RichardGarfinkle · Apr 1, 2015

I know the thread has gone a bit beyond this, but there was something Monkey posted that I wish I didn't have to take issue with, but I do.

Certainly, if anything is blatantly against the constitution and basic human rights, it's genocide. I agree that it goes against the freedom that forged our country.

While genocide is absolutely against basic human rights, it is not against the Constitution, nor is it against the freedom that forged our country.

There is nothing in the US Constitution preventing genocide, slavery, or any of a vast number of other crimes against humanity.
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html

The closest we can find before the Civil War is the seventh and eighth amendments:

Article the seventh... No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Article the eighth... In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

But these articles did not prevent genocide against Native Americans nor did they get in the way of slavery because those were not seen as crimes.

The simple fact is that despite its claims, the US did not begin with an idea of freedom for all people.

The US in its history has mostly grown toward that idea, but it can be turned back if enough people are willing to do so.

Those enough people might be the signers of a petition, the members of a state legislature, the members of Congress, or a majority of the US Supreme Court.

It seems pointless to argue about whether or not this particular method of instituting barbarism should be permitted, what is needed is to reject the cruelty and contempt embodied in the petition regardless of how it is brought forth.

Monkey · Apr 1, 2015

I would think "All men are created equal," "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness," and "Equal protection under the law," would cover it under our current understanding of those terms. If equal protection confers the right to marry to LGBT people, surely it also confers the right to not be shot down in the street?

Amadan · Apr 1, 2015

Yeah, the Constitution might not originally have forbidden genocide and slavery, but I'm pretty sure a pro-slavery or genocide bill introduced today would be struck down based on the legal precedents set in the past two centuries.

With Scalia writing the dissenting opinion, of course.

RichardGarfinkle · Apr 1, 2015

Amadan said:
Yeah, the Constitution might not originally have forbidden genocide and slavery, but I'm pretty sure a pro-slavery or genocide bill introduced today would be struck down based on the legal precedents set in the past two centuries.

With Scalia writing the dissenting opinion, of course.

I think it would depend on the way the law was written. For example, if a law were passed requiring prisoners to work x hours a week to defray the costs of their imprisonment, does anyone think it would be struck down on 13th Amendment grounds?

nighttimer · Apr 1, 2015

RichardGarfinkle said:
I think it would depend on the way the law was written. For example, if a law were passed requiring prisoners to work x hours a week to defray the costs of their imprisonment, does anyone think it would be struck down on 13th Amendment grounds?

Probably not, and there is an exception in the 13th Amendment which allows slavery as an option and it has been put into practice.

On Sept. 15, 1963, the bomb that killed four girls at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., showed America just how far we had to go to fulfill the promise of justice and equality for all, even a century after the 13th Amendment ended slavery. Half a century after the bombing, the struggle is not over, in part because language in that same amendment still undermines the equal humanity of more than 7 million Americans who have been convicted of a crime.

Ratified at the end of the Civil War, the amendment abolished slavery, with one critical exception: Slavery and involuntary servitude actually remain lawful "as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." In other words, according to this so-called punishment clause, if you get pulled over with the wrong controlled substance in your trunk, there's nothing in the 13th Amendment to ensure you can't be considered a slave of the state.

The punishment clause was taken directly from the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and reflected the belief of the time that hard work was essential to prisoners' moral rehabilitation. But the language was also ambiguous enough to be grossly abused. Soon, the clause was being used to reinstitute slavery under another guise.

In 1866, just a year after the Civil War, a black man convicted of theft in Maryland was advertised for sale in the newspaper as punishment. "Vagrancy" — code for being young, black and unemployed — could yield similar results.

Decades later, famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass described how the widespread "convict lease system" exploited the punishment clause to subvert the noble intent of the 13th Amendment: "(States) claim to be too poor to maintain state convicts within prison walls. Hence the convicts are leased out to work for railway contractors, mining companies and those who farm large plantations. These companies assume charge of the convicts, work them as cheap labor and pay the states a handsome revenue for their labor. Nine-tenths of these convicts are negroes." Douglass went on to note that so many blacks were behind bars because law enforcement tended to target them. (Hello, Ferguson!)

Importantly, Supreme Court decisions of the 20th century ensured that no one today is sentenced to actual slavery as a form of criminal punishment, but shades of Douglass' critique still ring true. Black men are incarcerated at six times the rate of white men, thanks in part to uneven enforcement and sentencing in the "war on drugs." While drug use rates vary little among racial groups, people of color stand a much better chance of being searched, prosecuted and convicted than whites, and government studies have found that they serve longer sentences.

Racially imbalanced enforcement also means that minorities are more likely to suffer consequences that outlast their sentences: difficulty finding jobs and housing, lost access to government benefits and, in some places, disenfranchisement.

Next year, the United States will mark the 150th anniversary of the abolition of slavery when, at the cost of 600,000 lives, we concluded that all people, regardless of color, are made in the image of their creator and that slavery is an abomination. Not just because it compels labor, but because it denies the full dignity and value of the enslaved person. As long as it remains in the Constitution, the punishment clause is an offensive vestige of the legacy of dehumanizing and often racist practices in the American criminal justice system.

Meet the new inequality. Same as the old inequality. Only less overt.

Alessandra Kelley · Apr 1, 2015

Why are people talking as if prisoner slave labor were merely hypothetical?

Hello, Louisiana. I see you've managed to keep the old unpaid involuntary servitude thing going gangbusters.

Would You Sign My "Kill the Gays" ballot proposal?

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