Solon Apologizes to Jews, Women, Gays

Former California State Sen. John Schmitz has issued an apology to Jews, women and homosexuals as part of a $20,000 settlement of a $10 million defamation suit arising from a press release issued by Schmitz’s office in 1981.

Schmitz, a former member of the ultra-conservative John Birch Society, issued the news release after a feminist attorney had handed him a chastity belt to protest his views during legislative hearings on a proposed anti-abortion measure.

The release denounced witnesses opposing the measure as “imported lesbians from anti-male and pro-abortion queer groups in San Francisco.” The audience at the hearing was described as “a sea of hard, Jewish and [arguably] female faces.”

The settlement, as well as Schmitz’s $30,000 in legal bills, will be paid from California state funds.