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ACLU Resists Megan’s Law Reform in California

Apologies to Kender, Bergbikr, and other California conservatives, but it seems that the Golden State has outdone itself as the Kook Capital of the United States: child molesters and rapists are a protected class of citizenry there.

Catherine Seipp, in her recent OpinionJournal.com article, outlines how left-wing ideologues in league with the ACLU have blocked a simple reform of the California version of Megan’s Law. In summary Ms. Seipp (misspelled “Siepp” in the article byline) writes:

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.

Megan’s Laws are a nationwide reaction to the 1994 murder of a New Jersey girl. The assailant, a convicted but paroled child molester, had moved in right across the street from Megan, but of course no one knew until it was tragically too late. Megan’s Laws vary somewhat from state to state, but a common theme is that they require the local authorities to keep a public database of convicted sex offenders and their whereabouts. The defective California law, with its housing discromination clause, essentially grants child molesters and sex offenders “protected class” status.

So, why isn’t the law being fixed? I’ll allow Ms. Seipp to explain:

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 It would also order that the addresses of registered sex offenders–which are often outdated–be kept current online.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.

Nevertheless, the ACLU opposes AB 438, and Assembly members Mervyn Dymally (D., Compton), Jackie Goldberg (D., L.A.) and committee chair Mark Leno (D., San Francisco) all voted no. For representatives serving on a public safety committee, these three seem oddly unconcerned with public safety. Mr. Dymally lately has been arguing that it’s wrong to deny illegal immigrants driver’s licenses, but this is probably just the latest blip in a long career of entitlement politics. Ms. Goldberg and Mr. Leno, however, seem to have a particular habit of positioning themselves against anyone trying to promote an orderly civic environment in California.

When she was on the Los Angeles City Council in the ’90s, Ms. Goldberg alienated even fellow liberals by regularly siding with vagrants and bar patrons against residents.

    [...]

Mark Leno, best known as the author of California’s recently vetoed gay-marriage bill, this summer criticized Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s efforts to toughen California laws against sex offenders. Proposed new restrictions, which may be on the ballot next year, include keeping rapists and child molesters farther away from schools and parks, and requiring some to wear electronic monitoring bracelets.

It is unconscionable that such elected officials as Dymally, Goldberg, and Leno (all Democrats, of course) could at once claim themselves to be servants of the body politic, AND basically work toward elevating one of the lowest life forms residing therein. If I am not mistaken, there are certain freedoms that convicted felons forfeit as a result of their convictions, even after their release. When some misplaced effort at restoration of their “rights” has the clear potential of putting the public at risk — such as is the case with the perverse and highly recidivistic crimes discussed here — we trust our elected officials to protect the weakest, the most vulnerable. They are NOT supposed to toe the ACLU ideological line that espouses freedoms for any number of reprehensible activities, such as the “right” to distribute child pornography, or support of NAMBLA’s “right” to corrupt young boys.

I’m hot under the collar about this issue not only because I have two school-age children, nor just because I was raised in California and still feel thankful of the (for the most part) idyllic upper-middle-class childhood within which I was nurtured there. This hits home also because I know several people who were molested or raped in California, and some of them were child victims.

This issue is real for me, more real than I’d wish it to be for anyone. I hope it is at very least an important issue for every American not hell-bent on corrupting the true concept of civil rights in this country. Our children have the civil right to be save from such predators… and safe from the likes of the ACLU and their lackeys, as well.

Ms. Seipp, columnist for National Review Online and Independent Women’s Forum, also has a blog: Cathy’s World. I urge you to blogroll her if you haven’t already.

8 OCT UPDATE: Van Helsing at Moonbattery discusses this in more detail and offers some excellent suggestions on legislative reform. Damned if they do, damned if they don’t… be damned!

Originally posted at TMH’s Bacon Bits as part of the Stop the ACLU Blogburst.

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Posted by Bob on October 6, 2005 1:00 pm

» Filed Under Child Exploitation

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One Response to “ACLU Resists Megan’s Law Reform in California”

  1. epiphany on October 6th, 2005 8:13 pm

    Why must the ACLU continue to support the monsters that attack and ravage our children, instead of supporting the civil rights of the children whose lives are destroyed by these ruthless acts of sickening evil? This organization has out lived its usefulness and must be abolished.

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