California Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger signed a bill into law that repeals a decades-old gay
“cure” mandate from state code.
Schwarzenegger signed the bill into law
on Monday.
The law, placed on the books in 1950,
instructed the State Department of Mental Health to conduct research
into the “causes and cures of homosexuality,” and classified gay
men and lesbians as sexual deviants and possible child molesters.
Equality California, the state's
largest gay advocate, lobbied for passage of the bill sponsored by
Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal, a Long Beach Democrat.
“It's discriminatory, it's insulting
and it has got to go,” Lowenthal told the AP in April. “Sixty
years is more than long enough.”
The bill was carried in the Senate by
Senator Roy Ashburn, the
recently out Republican from Bakersfield.
“The law is clearly founded on a
false premise that somehow homosexuality can and should be cured,”
Ashburn told On Top Magazine. “And there is a requirement
on the department to conduct research, that means spend public money
on something that is discriminatory and false.”
The ex-gay group Parents and Friends of
Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX), a group that claims sexual orientation can –
and should – be altered, objected to the law's repeal.