Gay Cure Mandate Targeted in Calif

California assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal has introduced a bill that would eliminate a 43-year-old section of state code that mandates a search for a "cure" for homosexuality.

According to The Sacramento Bee, the bill targets a section of California's Welfare and Institutions Code placed into law in 1967 that "requires the Department of Mental Health 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.'"

While it remains unclear how seriously the department ever followed the order, a spokeswoman for the department told the Bee that any research that did occur would have ended decades ago.

Lowenthal, prompted by LGBT advocacy group Equality California, wants to make sure any trace of the code is eradicated.