Michael Heath is so anxious to go back in time you’d think he expects to earn frequent flier miles for the journey.

Heath, executive director of the Christian Civic League of Maine, has initiated a referendum that would ban same-sex marriage and civil unions, and prohibit same-sex couples from adopting. It would also remove sexual orientation from the Maine Human Rights Act’s list of protected classes and strip the funding for civil rights advocacy in the state attorney general’s office.

In short, Heath wants to return to an era when the only right gays had was the right to hate ourselves.

If the secretary of state’s office approves his wacky proposal, then Heath will start gathering signatures. He’ll need about 55,000 of them to put the referendum on the state ballot.

“The question that he has submitted to the secretary of state is so broad that it’s ridiculous,” said Betsy Smith, executive director of Equality Maine, to the Bangor Daily News. “I don’t even know if it’s legal to put a question like that on the ballot. He basically wants to repeal any rights gays have gotten.”

Yes, Heath is certainly a greedy fellow. I’m surprised he isn’t also trying to outlaw gay bars and hair product.

Heath isn’t a crusader-come-lately. When in 2005 Maine legislators made it illegal to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation in employment, housing and education, Heath and his Christian Civic League spearheaded a referendum to restore each Mainer’s God-given right to discriminate. But 55 percent of voters in the Pine Tree State disagreed with Heath, the law stood, and he has been girding his loins ever since for the next fracas.

Shortly before filing the paperwork for the latest referendum, Heath laid out his intentions on the Christian Civic League’s Web site: “It is time for another referendum on gay rights. We have been licking our wounds long enough. I’m not going to sit by doing nothing really meaningful and watch either the courts or the legislature further advance special rights for homosexuality.”

OK, so don’t watch. Kidding! In his editorial Heath used the word “special” more often than the Church Lady.

He also wrote, “Everyone has the right to marry already. Nobody should have legal rights that are premised on being sexually promiscuous! NO SPECIAL RIGHTS FOR HOMOSEXUALITY! PERIOD!!”

Lordy. The special rights argument is tired. The statement that everyone can marry is a slap in the face. The sentence about legal rights for being sexually promiscuous I don’t even understand. Is he saying gays are people who are so lustful we sleep with each other because heterosexual coupling doesn’t satiate our gargantuan appetites?

This much I know: Maine has a zealot on its hands.

Considering that state seems to go through a battle royal over gay rights every six minutes, average citizens must be getting awfully sick of it. And those whose lives and livelihoods depend on fair treatment don’t relish another bloody round.

“I’m tired of trying to have to justify my right to maintain my employment,” Sarah Parker-Holmes, who’s fought in five major campaigns since 1992, told the Portland Press Herald. “I’m tired of fighting.”

Maybe Heath is counting on his opposition being exhausted. Or maybe he hopes voters have had it with the issue of gay rights and will stay home.

I’m starting to think he chose to make his potential referendum so sweeping because he knows this could be his last hurrah. He’s throwing the kitchen sink at this one – before Mainers decide to hold a referendum on him.