American Taliban

And for once, that phrase has actual meaning — in the very unlikely event California attorney Matthew Gregory McLaughlin gets his way with a ballot initiative he’s just submitted called the Sodomite Suppression Act:

The proposal prevents anyone “who is a sodomite or who espouses sodomistic propaganda” from holding public office in California. Those found guilty of spreading propaganda would be fined $1 million and face up to 10 years in prison and a lifetime ban from the state of California.

It also calls for 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.”

In California, any resident can submit a ballot proposal by paying a $200 fee and filling out the right paperwork.

McLaughlin needs to collect more than 350,000 signatures — which hardly seems likely — to get his initiative on the ballot. Then have it approved by California voters — which seems even less likely — and found constitutional by the state’s Supreme Court. Unlikelihoods on top of unlikelihoods wrapped up in improbabilities.

In other words, the Sodomite Suppression Act ain’t going anywhere — so why bother?

The internet doesn’t have much on McLaughlin, other than he graduated from the George Mason University School of Law, has been a member in good standing of the California Bar for 17 years, and practices law in Huntington Beach. A OS X Maps search for the address listed for his practice shows a small storefront next to a dry cleaners in the Newland Shopping Center strip mall anchored by an Albertson’s grocery store.

Clearly he is not a successful and powerful attorney with connections deep inside California politics.

McLaughlin has no website, no advertising, no personal photo, and no indication I can find of what kind of law he practices. “Better Call” Saul Goodman seems more reputable and less inscrutable.

So then.

Best as I can tell, McLaughlin can be one of two things. Maybe he’s a struggling attorney looking for publicity in the worst possible way in the worst possible state for that kind of publicity. Or, given that the 2012 “War on Women” has expanded into 2016 into LGBT and transgender issues, there seems like a greater-than-zero chance that McLaughlin is a part of a lefty “War on…” operation.

If the former is true, then ignore him and he’ll return shortly to obscurity. If the latter is the case, it’s anyone’s guess as to whether McLaughlin is running a false flag operation, or if he’s just being used.

But as we learned in 2012, be very wary of these “War on…” political memes — they can carry serious weight, even though on the surface they appear ridiculous.