AB 2199 Passes Public Safety Committee Vote

Assemblymember Bonnie Lowenthal's AB 2199 (Repeal of Discriminatory Code) has been getting press recently because it has focused attention on the fact that the California Legal Code still contains vestiges of patently discriminatory language against homosexuality.

The text of the bill is:

An act to repeal Section 8050 of the Welfare and Institutions Code,
relating to mental health.

 LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

AB 2199, as introduced, Bonnie Lowenthal. Sexual deviation:
research.
Existing law requires the State Department of Mental Health,
acting through the superintendent of the Langly Porter Clinic, to
plan, conduct, and cause to be conducted scientific research into the
causes and cures of sexual deviation, including deviations conducive
to sex crimes against children, and the causes and cures of
homosexuality, and into methods of identifying potential sex
offenders.
This bill would repeal those provisions.
Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes.
State-mandated local program: no.


THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:

SECTION 1.  Section 8050 of the Welfare and Institutions Code is
repealed. 
8050.  The State Department of Mental Health, acting through the
superintendent of the Langley Porter Clinic, shall plan, conduct, and
cause to be conducted scientific research into the causes and cures
of sexual deviation, including deviations conducive to sex crimes
against children, and the causes and cures of homosexuality, and into
methods of identifying potential sex offenders.  

On Tuesday AB 2199 passed out of the Public Safety Committee of the Assembly with all Democrats except Anthony Portantino (AD-44) voting for the bill and the Republicans merely voting present (which has to be regarded as an improvement on Republicans generally voting no on any legislation Equality California sponsors).

Anyway, the bill moves on to the Assembly floor, where presumably openly gay Speaker of the Assembly John Pérez will ensure its passage, and the official call to cure homosexuals and treat them in the same way as "sexual deviants" and people who commit "sex crimes against children" will be relegated to the shameful past of The Great State of California.