A California judge has rejected a proposed ballot initiative filed by a lawyer that seeks to kill homosexuals.

In a ruling issued on Monday, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Raymond Cadei said the initiative, called the Sodomite Suppression Act, is "patently unconstitutional on its face."

"Any preparation and official issuance of a circulating title and summary for the Act by the Attorney General would be inappropriate, waste public resources, generate unnecessary divisions among the public, and mislead the electorate," Cadei ruled.

The measure was proposed by California lawyer Matt McLaughlin, who paid $200 last February to start the ballot initiative.

The proposed measure said, "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 Gomorrha."

"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," the proposal said.

The initiative seeks to punish any person who will distribute, perform or transmit "sodomistic propaganda" to minors with a fine of $1 million per occurrence and/or imprisonment of up to 10 years, or be expelled from California for life.

It also empowers ordinary residents to kill homosexuals with the killers given immunity from any charge or liability.

"This proposal not only threatens public safety, it is patently unconstitutional, utterly reprehensible, and has no place in a civil society," California Attorney General Kamala Harris said.