California has officially turned government contracting into a sexual orientation loyalty test, because apparently the Golden State ran out of actual problems to solve. The California Public Utilities Commission is now running an LGBT Business Enterprise certification program that makes roughly $633 million in state contracts available — but only if you can prove you're gay enough to qualify.

You read that right. The state of California wants your marriage license, your parenting records, and possibly a letter from a "recognized LGBT organization" vouching for your identity before you're allowed to bid on taxpayer-funded work. What's next, a panel of judges holding up scorecards?

Applicants must submit documentation that can include marriage licenses, evidence of "completed or attempted parenting efforts," records connected to gender transition procedures, letters from recognized LGBT organizations, and multiple forms of identification. It's less of a business application and more of an ideological colonoscopy.

The certification process requires applicants to complete questionnaires specifically designed to verify their LGBT ownership qualifications before they're even eligible for contracting opportunities. Because nothing says "equal opportunity" like a government bureaucrat deciding whether you're authentically queer enough to pave a road.

And here's the kicker — if you lie about it, you're facing fines up to $5,000 and up to one year in prison. So in California, you can shoplift $950 worth of merchandise and waltz out the front door, but heaven help you if you fib on your sexual orientation paperwork. Priorities.

The state is essentially ensuring "taxpayer funded contracts only for LGBTQ people are being awarded to people who are gay enough." That's not a parody. That's the actual policy.

Let's pause and appreciate the absurdity here. We spent decades fighting for the principle that your sexual orientation is nobody's business — especially not the government's. Now California is demanding documented proof of it as a prerequisite for doing business with the state. The same crowd that screams "stay out of our bedrooms" built a program that literally requires you to submit bedroom credentials to a government agency.

Critics have called the certification process "extremely bizarre, not to mention highly illegal." And they're not wrong. The idea that $633 million in taxpayer money is being funneled through a program that gates access based on sexual identity rather than, say, the quality of your work or the competitiveness of your bid is exactly the kind of thing that makes normal Americans wonder if California has completely lost the plot.

Spoiler: it has.

The program reportedly emerged from years of advocacy by activists who argued that LGBT-owned businesses faced barriers in California's utility sector contracting. Fair enough — barriers are bad. But the solution wasn't supposed to be building a new barrier made entirely of invasive personal questionnaires and identity verification hoops. That's not progress. That's a bureaucratic funhouse mirror version of discrimination.

So congratulations, California. You've created a system where the government gets to decide who's gay enough to earn a living. Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of a world where people were judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. California's version? Judged by the contents of your marriage license and whether you have a letter from the right advocacy group.

We truly live in the dumbest timeline.