Anti-Choice and Anti-Semitic

WASHINGTON, D.C.—A California State Senator has been stripped of a committee chairmanship and fired from a state commission on women after describing abortion supporters as “bulldykes,” “lesbians” and “murderous marauders” who are hard, Jewish and “arguably” female.

In an unusual disciplinary move, the Senate Rules Committee voted in Jan. to remove Republican Senator John G. Schmitz of Orange County from his posts as chair of the Constitutional Amendments Committee, vice-chair of the Industrial Relations Committee and member of the Commission on the Status of Women, largely because of the anti-Semitic remarks made in his press statement. In addition, the Rules Committee of the State Senate approved a resolution (Jan. 31, 1982) “deploring” these remarks, and “dissociating” the upper chamber from them, as well as from others charging that the Jewish community was “terrorizing everybody.”

Schmitz is a long-time member of the John Birch Society and, in 1972, ran for president as a nominee of the American Independent Party.