The fabulous Joe Decker, co-founder of GodHatesShrimp.com, is back with a new voter initiative: The Shellfish Suppression Act.

You heard that right. It’s a parody of the loathsome Sodomite Suppression Act, which requires that “any person who willingly touches another person of the same gender for purposes of sexual gratification be put to death by bullets to the head or by any other convenient method.” (It’s usually miscalled the Sodomy Suppression Act.)

Neither one of these initiatives can appear on the 2016 ballot unless its petition gains 365,000 signatures. Even then, the voters of California are unlikely to ban shrimp or vote to shoot us queers in the head — not because everyone here is liberal (very far from it), but because we’re not that stupid.

Joe Decker (who is a friend of mine) isn’t seriously calling for the suppression of Clams Casino. He’s pointing out the contradiction inherent in the logic of those who claim they are only trying to follow God’s law, but who want to ban only a few things they define as sin. I don’t hear them demanding that we feed and shelter the poor (Leviticus 25: 35-38), although the Old and New Testament are rich in verses that command us to do so. Nor are they outlawing shellfish, although the Old Testament calls them an abomination (Leviticus 11: 9-12).

If you think you can please your deity by enforcing Old Testament laws, you can thrill him by also banning shellfish. Not just for those who choose not to eat scallops, lobsters, and oysters, but for everyone.

But Jesus told people to look into their own hearts, not to go foraging in others’ lives for sin. (Matthew 7: 3-5 and elsewhere). Moreover, there is compelling Biblical evidence that same-sex relationships can be as loving, as sanctified, as those between members of the opposite sex. Plenty of people don’t actually need Biblical evidence for this, but for those who do, that article sums up the evidence.

Thanks, Joe Decker, for showing the absurdity of the Sodomite Suppression Act.