JACKSON — A sheriff's department says threatening calls made to a Mississippi lawmaker came from a cellphone with a New Jersey area code.

Republican Rep. Andy Gipson of Braxton said he and his family received death threats in mid-May after he posted Bible verses on Facebook to express his opposition to same-sex marriage.

Gipson doesn't have caller identification on his home phone, so he asked investigators to pull his phone records.

Simpson County Lt. Brian Buckley told The Clarion-Ledger (http://on.thec-l.com/KiIKej) that Gipson received several calls from the same number. Buckley said the phone records for the New Jersey number could be subpoenaed, which will help identify the service carrier and the phone's owner.

"The problem that we might come into is if this is one of the throw-away phones you can buy at Walmart," Buckley said.

Buckley said he plans to seek assistance from the state attorney general's office or a federal agency.

Jan Schaefer, spokeswoman for Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, said that without complete facts about the calls made to Gipson, she couldn't comment on whether the calls might violate the state's law against cyber stalking.

Gipson is an attorney and Baptist minister. He's also chairman of the Mississippi House Judiciary B Committee.

He posted his Facebook comments after President Barack Obama said he supports allowing same-sex couples to marry. Gipson wrote that homosexuality is a sin and referenced two Bible passages, one that includes a call for the stoning death of gay people. However, Gipson said in interviews that has never and would never wish for the murder of any person.

He said he received several phone calls, including the ones that had death threats. Investigators found calls that came from the east and west coasts.

After hearing the messages, Gipson sent his wife and their four children to visit family out of state as a precaution. They have since returned home.

Gipson said while the volume of calls received was initially frightening, he was comforted to learn that they came from only a handful of phone numbers.

"I was thinking that all these different people were calling my house from around the country," he said.