HUNTINGTON BEACH, California – An Orange County lawyer has filed a notice with the State of California that he intends to circulate an initiative measure that would call for the death of anyone who engages in sodomy in the Golden State.

Matt McLaughlin, 45 -- who listed his business address as 19744 Beach Blvd., No. 219, a Mail Boxes Express site in the Newland Shopping Center in Huntington Beach, CA 92648 -- filed his notice in late February and it was marked as received on Feb. 26 by the Initiative Coordinator in the California Attorney General’s Office.

McLaughlin proposes to kill “sodomites” to prevent God’s “utter destruction” a la Sodom and Gomorrah.

Furthermore, McLaughlin taps into Russian and Ugandan lingo in seeking to ban “sodomistic propaganda” and would fine offenders $1 million per occurrence and/or up to 10 years in prison and/or banishment for life from California.

McLaughlin titled his initiative as the “Sodomite Suppression Act.” He proposes to change Penal Code Section 39:

a) The abominable crime against nature known as buggery, called also sodomy, is a monstrous evil that Almighty God, giver of freedom and liberty, commands us to suppress on pain of our utter destruction even as he overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. b) Seeing that it is better that offenders should die rather than that all of us should be killed by God’s just wrath against us for the folly of tolerating wickedness in our midst, the People of California wisely command, in the fear of God, 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. c) No person shall distribute, perform, or transmit sodomistic propaganda directly or indirectly by any means to any person under the age of majority. Sodomistic propaganda is defined as anything aimed at creating an interest in or an acceptance of human sexual relations other than between a man and a woman. Every offender shall be fined $1 million per occurrence, and/or imprisoned up to 10 years, and/or expelled from the boundaries of the state of California for up to life. d) No person shall serve in any public office, nor serve in public employment, nor enjoy any public benefit, who is a sodomite or who espouses sodomistic propaganda or who belongs to any group that does. e) This law is effective immediately and shall not be rendered ineffective nor invalidated by any court, state or federal, until heard by a quorum of the Supreme Court of California consisting only of judges who are neither sodomites nor subject to disqualification hereunder. f) The state has an affirmative duty to defend and enforce this law as written, and every member of the public has standing to seek its enforcement and obtain reimbursement for all costs and attorney’s fees in so doing, and further, should the state persist in inaction over 1 year after due notice, the general public is empowered and deputized to execute all the provisions hereunder extra-judicially, immune from any charge and indemnified by the state against any and all liability. g) This law shall be known as “The Sodomite Suppression Act” and be numbered as section 39 in Title 3 of the Penal Code, pertaining to offences [sic] against the sovereignty of the state. The text shall be prominently posted in every public school classroom. All laws in conflict with this law are to that extent invalid.

Who is Matthew Gregory McLaughlin?

Matthew Gregory McLaughlin is an attorney who lives in Huntington Beach, California. He lists his phone number as 949-285-7902.

He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of California Irvine and his law degree from George Mason University School of Law in Virginia. He was admitted to the State Bar of California in 1998, according to martindale.com

The State Bar of California shows that McLaughlin is on active status with the bar. It also noted that he was listed as “inactive” in 2012. The bar did not list any disciplinary or administrative actions taken against him.

McLaughlin has very little of an imprint via the Internet, and the last time he raised controversy was in 2004 when the Los Angeles Times wrote: Bible's Lessons Inspired Initiative. McLaughlin told the newspaper that he wanted to amend the California Constitution to mandate the use of the Bible in literature classes in public schools. The Times also reported that he was doing this alone, not backed by any church or political organization.

Media across California and the United States are trying to figure out whether McLaughlin is a lone wolf again, or is backed by some anti-gay groups. By any measure, it would appear that McLaughlin has become more radicalized in 2015 than in 2004 by advocating the death penalty for "sodomites."

California and the death penalty

California has 748 people on Death Row, the most of any U.S. state.

In 2006, a moratorium was placed on the death penalty and no executions have been carried out since then.

In 2014, federal Judge Cormac J. Carney ruled that California's death penalty is unconstitutional. California Attorney General Kamala Harris appealed the ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Aug. 21, 2014.

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To submit a comment about the "Sodomite Suppression Act" to the Attorney General's Office, click HERE. Comments will be accepted through March 28, 2015.

Ken Williams is Editor in Chief of SDGLN. He can be reached at ken@sdgln.com, @KenSanDiego on Twitter, or by calling toll-free to 888-442-9639, ext. 713.