A California legislative committee narrowly advanced a bill last week that would repeal a state law designed to find the causes and cures for homosexuality.

While some lawmakers and gay rights organizations would like to see the bill killed in its entirety, we feel the bill should be stripped of language inclusive of homosexuals and continue on to protect our children from the sexual predators and pedophiles it was intended to in the first place.

Written in 1950 after a series of sex crimes in Los Angeles, at the time, lawmakers wanted to discover why people committed such crimes and lumped gays and lesbians in with such offenders, listing homosexuals as “sexual deviants” who should be researched.

That task was given to the state Department of Mental Health.

Tabled for more than 60 years, the bill has not gone anywhere. Last week, the bill moved out of the Assembly Committee on Public Safety on a 4-0 vote, with one democrat and two republican members abstaining form the vote.

Assemblymember Anthony Portantino, D-Pasadena, who abstained from voting said, “It’s offensive that somebody 60 years ago would try to include that as a disorder when we know it’s not.” Assemblymember Curt Hagman, R-Diamond Bar, and Danny Gilmore, R-Hanford, abstained from voting for similar reasons.

This handful of legislators said the law’s reference to homosexuality should be removed, but they want the state to continue researching sex crimes, according to the Associated Press.

California put the law on the books more than half a century ago as a response to public outcry after the onslaught of sex crimes in Los Angeles, which included the rape and murder of a 6-year-old girl. The murderer, who openly confessed his crime, was not gay. Still, gays and lesbians were targeted.

We agree with our ally to the north Assemblymember Bonnie Lowenthal, D-Long Beach , who recently sponsored the bill and said that even when the bill was originally designed, there was no legal justification to say that gay people needed to be understood and cured in the exact same way as sexual predators who rape and kill children.

Indeed, for us to leave it there would be wrong.

We agree with those legislators who believe the research into what makes sex offenders tick should be continued. Research shows that sex offenders are not predominantly homosexuals and funding to continue such a bill that would research the topic is offensive to our community.

California has not conducted research into homosexuality for decades, but did release several reports that examined hormone levels, physical characteristics and parental relationships of its subjects. There is no reason to reconvene research now.

The American Psychiatric Association stopped listing homosexuality as a mental disorder until 1973.

According to our sources, with discussion among assemblymembers, there were enough votes to strip the bill of the language, but others felt pressure from organizations, such the gay-rights group Equality California (EQCA) to completely remove the bill from the books.

We don’t understand such logic when we could be removed from automatically being lumped in with sex offenders, yet protect our children.

“This code simply mischaracterizes and institutes bigotry against the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community,” said Mario Guerrero, a director of EQCA.

Guerrero stressed that his organization supports child safety and credible research, but not the research that was brought about by the law. Still to throw gays on table or the floor lumped in with sex offenders is an insult.

“This is probably one of my saddest moments as a legislator, because you know where my heart is on what you’re trying to do,” Assemblymember Portantino said.

We couldn’t agree more.

The legislators who withheld support Tuesday said they preferred to strip the language about homosexual behavior from the law and leave in the provisions requiring the state to conduct research into the causes of sex crimes. We couldn’t agree more. We need to continue research into what makes sex offenders tick, but we don’t need to be lumped in with them.