WSJ: The Sex-Offender Lobby - Ideologues block reform of Megan's Law.

Wall Street Journal ^ | October 6, 2005 | CATHERINE SIEPP

[OESY]

Did you know that in California, child molesters and rapists are a protected class? It's true. Not only are California landlords banned from using the state's Megan's Law database to decline renting their properties to sex offenders, they're not even allowed to warn other tenants that these paroled criminals are now their neighbors. If they do the first, they can be fined $25,000 for housing discrimination. But if they don't do the second, they can be sued for failing to protect tenants against a known danger.

Landlords are caught between a rock, a hard place and the California State Assembly's Public Safety Committee, which last April stalled a bill designed to fix the Catch-22. The California Apartment Association is planning a grassroots effort to revive the bill, written by Assembly member Nicole Parra (D., Bakersfield)....

The Megan's Law movement began in New Jersey in 1994, after a seven-year-old girl there was murdered by a paroled child molester who'd moved in across the street. Megan's Laws differ from state to state, but in general they require law enforcement to maintain a registry of convicted sex offenders living in the area and make this registry available to the public.

The ACLU has fought Megan's Laws in every state but never succeeded in getting one declared unconstitutional; but as a sop to those worried about vigilantism, California's version included the provision against housing discrimination. The reform measure, AB 438, would specify that sex offenders are not a protected class. It would also order that the addresses of registered sex offenders -- which are often outdated -- be kept current online. As it stands, renters in an apartment formerly occupied by a sex offender run the risk of becoming false suspects....

[OESY]

Ms. Seipp, a columnist for National Review Online and the Independent Women's Forum, is the author of a blog, www.cathyseipp.net.

[dts32041]

Just proves why the USS Iowa is not welcomed in San Francisco.

Mexifornia is a strange place best given back to mexico so they can run it the way it needs to be run.

[goldstategop]

The Democrats so extreme here they do things the opposite of what people expect. Heck - they've been coddling criminals for a long time and only the initiative in California stopped them from doing more damage to public safety.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[KeyLargo]

Not sure if this has been posted before... but it is a good site that lets you make maps of where sex offenders live.

http://www.familywatchdog.us/