SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Much has been said and written about a recently proposed voter referendum initiative in California called the “Sodomite Suppression Act.” The measure has been offered by Matt McLaughlin, a graduate of the prestigious George Mason University School of Law who was admitted to the California state bar in 1998.
While other commentators have focused on trivial details like the claim the proposal is obviously, facially, fundamentally and unarguably unconstitutional, to date nobody has asked — let alone answered — the most important hypothetical questions facing the adult entertainment industry with respect to this potentially game-changing proposal.
In order to help the industry prepare for changes should the SSA become law, YNOT sought assistance from Earnest S. Hitter, a man with a briefcase and several business cards indicating he is an attorney of some kind with an office — or at the very least, a post office box — in an upscale Los Angeles-area neighborhood.
For reference, the full text of the SSA can be found here.
YNOT: Dude…. WTF?
Earnest S. Hitter: While it’s understandable to have a strong emotional response to the proposal and some of its more extreme provisions — including the controversial verbiage stating “any person who willingly touches another person of the same gender for purposes of sexual gratification be put to death by bullets to the head or by any other convenient method” — it’s not proper to take a few lines out of context and judge the entire bill on such basis.
The proposal should be evaluated in its entirety before we come to any conclusions as to whether its author is a legitimate, vicious, drool-emitting homophobic lunatic, or merely a contemptible asshole willing to fork over 200 bucks to the State of California in furtherance of mass-trolling the LGBT community.
Do I even need to think about this? Could this shit conceivably become law?
While most legal experts generally seem to agree the proposal has not even a single tiny snowball’s chance in Hell of withstanding the scrutiny of the court, a lot of people said the same thing about the Affordable Care Act, and thus far the ACA stands undefeated in the Supreme Court.
Now, I’m no expert on the ACA, but as I recall from my prior research, it contains provisions enabling “death panels” to execute the elderly pursuant to some manner of Americanized Sharia law. If something like that can make it past the Legal Goalies on High over at SCOTUS, all bets are off.
OK, fine. How does the SSA impact the adult entertainment industry, then?
As defined in §39(c) of the SSA, “sodomistic propaganda” means “anything aimed at creating an interest in or an acceptance of human sexual relations other than between a man and a woman.” While this definition most clearly implicates gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual and “girl-girl” pornography, the breadth of the definition means it could also apply to gangbangs, double penetration and a variety of other genres.
Dude, that fucking blows! How much trouble could I get in for distributing “sodomistic propaganda?”
The punishments would be severe. The proposal calls for fines of “$1 million per occurrence,” imprisonment for up to 10 years and expulsion “from the boundaries of the state of California for up to life.”
On the one hand, it might not be the worst thing for your porn business if you were to get kicked out of California, but on the other hand, there are some really good restaurants here.
Are there any other risks to California-based porn businesses if the SSA were to pass?
Yes. Under §39(d), if you are found to be someone “who espouses sodomistic propaganda or who belongs to any group that does,” you will be barred from serving in public office or holding public employment, as well as prohibited from enjoying “any public benefit.”
Granted, a filthy, irredeemable pornographer like you could never be elected to public office in the first place, but it’s conceivable you might apply for a government job someday — or for welfare.
This isn’t really going to become law, right? Doesn’t this nut have to gather some signatures first, or something?
Yes — and many question whether the SSA can even make it onto the ballot to be voted on. Ordinarily, I would say “no way will this become law,” except as an attorney from California, I can tell you first-hand this state is home to a lot of highly confused elderly people who will sign literally anything you put in front of them.
When you combine those folks with the state’s true gay-haters, who are still pissed off about Proposition 8 being overturned by the courts, and factor in the drunken frat boys who will sign the petition just so they can take a picture of the form and post it to Instagram as a joke, it’s at least conceivable the measure could reach the required 350,000 signatures required to get on the ballot.
From there….. Well, this is California we’re talking about. When a murderous cyborg from the future has already served as Governor, can anyone honestly say stranger things haven’t happened?
