Free Republic

Ted Lieu said he designed the bill to deny parental rights. SACRAMENTO, August 30, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) - A first-of-its-kind state measure banning voluntary therapy for same-sex attraction for minors has passed California’s Assembly, moving it a step closer to law, pending the reconciliation of the bill’s versions this week. The latest version of the bill states that California has a compelling interest in protecting minors against “exposure to serious harms caused by sexual orientation change efforts,” and prohibits any mental health professional from providing sexual orientation therapy to individuals under 18 years old.  The measure passed by a 51-21 vote...

A new bill that’s the first of its kind has opinion hotly divided in California, this time over whether parents can be banned from trying to “cure” their gay children. Senate Bill 1172, which would prohibit all “sexual orientation change efforts” for minors, is through the legislature and slated to land on the governor's desk in September.

State Sen. Alex Padilla of Los Angeles had every reason to hope that the 11 members of the obscure but powerful state Assembly Education Committee in Sacramento would back his new legislation, Senate Bill 1530, designed to let public schools more easily fire teachers who commit sexual, physically abusive or drug-related acts with their students. The bill, written by the former L.A. city councilman from the San Fernando Valley, a graduate of MIT who is seen by many as a man with a political future, had sailed through the Senate Education Committee in the upper house on a bipartisan vote....

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — When you head down to the beach for a little fun this summer, county officials want you to leave the pigskin at home. The Board of Supervisors this week agreed to raise fines to up to $1,000 for anyone who throws a football or a Frisbee on any beach in Los Angeles County. In passing the 37-page ordinance on Tuesday, officials sought to outline responsibilities for law enforcement and other public agencies while also providing clarification on beach-goer activities that could potentially disrupt or even injure the public. The updated rules now prohibit “any person to...

California, which has more drivers than any other state, has raised its cutoff age for car seats to 8. The new law took effect Sunday, with stiff fines for parents who don't comply. Children must be buckled into booster seats in vehicles until they turn 8 or grow to a height of 4-foot-9, under SB929 by Sen. Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa. That's two more years than under the previous law, which required the restraints until children turned 6 or reached 60 pounds.

A bill loaded with immigration politics and potential implications for highway safety has landed on Gov. Jerry Brown's desk. The legislation by Assemblyman Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, would change police procedures at drunken-driving checkpoints, prohibiting officers from arresting drivers and immediately impounding their cars if their only offense is not having a license. Supporters say the bill, AB353, would impose a consistent policy statewide - some agencies confiscate unlicensed drivers' cars now, and some do not - while keeping DUI checkpoints from being turned into traps for otherwise law-abiding illegal immigrants who cannot obtain licenses. "In most parts of California,...

With the Obama administration and Congress stalled on immigration reform, California has joined the growing parade of states acting on their own to pressure Washington into action. The Democrat-controlled state Senate on Wednesday night passed its version of the Dream Act – a bill that would allow illegal immigrants who attended state high schools for three or more years to apply for state-funded college financial aid. The federal version of the bill, which was most recently defeated in December, allows a path to citizenship for illegal-immigrant students and members of the military who were brought to the US as children....

WASHINGTON, August 12, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The California legislature is now pushing through a bill to remove parental notification for children as young as 12 to receive the dangerous STD vaccine Gardasil. The American Life League reports that each treatment of the HPV vaccine Gardasil, has an average cost of over $360, a sum that would be footed by taxpayers. Gardasil, the most popular HPV vaccine, has been found to cause dangerous side effects and as many as twelve deaths in the United States alone. The state had attempted but failed in 2007 to mandate HPV vaccinations for all girls...

California could eventually award its presidential Electoral votes to the candidate who wins the national popular vote. It's one of several election-related bills Governor Jerry Brown signed today. Right now, nearly every state awards its Electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate wins that particular state. California's 55 Electoral votes nearly always go to a Democrat these days, so candidates typically don't campaign here much. The National Popular Vote movement seeks to change that dynamic. With the governor's signature, California now joins eight other states that have pledged to award their Electoral votes to whoever gets the most votes nationwide. But...

(Reuters) - California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law on Monday a bill allowing illegal immigrants to receive privately funded scholarships to attend the state's public colleges and universities. The bill, dubbed the California Dream Act, passed the state Legislature earlier this month and aims at helping illegal immigrants who have earned a high school diploma after attending at least three years of high school in the state. "At the end of the day, if we're going to continue as a powerful, equal-opportunity society, we're going to have to invest in our people," Brown, a Democrat, said at the signing...

Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a controversial bill to include the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans in California's public school textbooks. After the governor signed the bill introduced by Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, he released a statement that said, "History should be honest. This bill revises existing laws that prohibit discrimination in education and ensures that the important contributions of Americans from all backgrounds and walks of life are included in our history books. It represents an important step forward for our state, and I thank Sen. Leno for his hard work on this historic legislation."

7-14-2011 SACRAMENTO – Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. announced today that he has signed the following bill: • SB 48 by Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) – Pupil instruction: prohibition of discriminatory content.

The California state legislature has passed a book-banning law. Nobody is calling the book ban a book ban because the books the book ban bans offend homosexuals. If the legislature had extended legislative protection to the hurt feelings of, say, Mormons or evangelical Christians, then everyone would have agreed that it’s a book ban. But it doesn’t, so don’t call the book ban a book ban. You just might get banned, too. The legislation, awaiting the signature of Governor Jerry Brown, decrees that localities in America’s most populous state “shall not adopt any textbooks or other instructional materials for use...

A new push is under way to ban the death penalty in California and close death row. Among those supporting the ban is the original author of California's death penalty law. Lawmakers held a first vote Thursday. The death penalty is popular among Californians, but those who want to get rid of it think the cost might change minds. California voters could decide next year the fate of more of than 700 notorious criminals currently locked up in San Quentin's death row. The California State Assembly Committee on Public Safety approved an initiative slated for November 2012 that would abolish...

A bill that seeks to abolish California's death penalty advanced Thursday after its first legislative hearing with support from the author of the state's death penalty and a former warden who presided over executions. Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, said she introduced the bill because California can no longer afford a capital punishment system that is both expensive and ineffective as it battles persistent multibillion-dollar budget deficits. If eventually signed into law, the bill would put the question before voters in 2012. The Assembly Public Safety Committee voted 5-2 along party lines in favor of SB490 after hearing testimony from Sacramento...

Head of the class: San Francisco schools already teach LGBT history, and they’ve done so since 1992. Read more at the San Francisco Examiner: http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/2011/07/bill-mandate-teaching-lgbt-history-moves-closer-classroom#ixzz1RM19rOze Prominent figures in LGBT history could play a larger role in classrooms throughout the state after a bill requiring their inclusion into California curriculum passed the state Assembly on Tuesday and headed to the governor’s desk.The FAIR Education Act by Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, would require schools to teach at all grade levels the historical contributions of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.If signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown, schools would have to...

Textbooks and history classes in California schools would be required to include the contributions of gays, lesbians and transgender Americans under a proposal given final legislative approval in the Assembly on Tuesday and sent to Gov. Jerry Brown.

Last week I posted on a clearly antisemitic piece of legislation in San Francisco and Santa Monica banning the Jewish religious tradition of circumcision. Judenrein in Sunny Southern California: Banning Male Circumcision. America, this is getting very, very ugly. Male circumcision is significantly healthier with or without the important religious significance. The Islamic practice of female genital mutilation (cutting off the clitoris) is sick misogyny. To equate the two is officially legislating Jew-hatred. Any doubt this was motivated by hatred and racism? Zombie over at PJM: Proof that S.F.’s circumcision ban is anti-Semitic As you may have heard by now,...

State lawmakers Wednesday advanced measures that would allow undocumented university students to apply for financial aid, would help police monitor use of social networking websites by sex offenders and would end the fingerprinting of food stamp recipients. The state aid that undocumented students could become eligible for would include Cal-Grants, institutional aid and fee waivers at publicly funded colleges. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed measures that would have provided the same privileges. Assemblyman Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles) said his proposal, which passed the lower house, would help "children brought here through no choice of their own, who embrace our values and learn...

A California bill working its way through the state legislature providing more protection for transgender individuals in the workplace could allow for cross-dressing employees to wear whatever they want to work, despite workplace dress codes. AB 887, which passed through the state's Assembly on May 16, is causing a stir among critics who feel it's raising the identity of a transgender individual to the same level as one's ethnicity or gender.