AUGUSTA -- A campaign to repeal the state's gay rights law and eliminate other safeguards for gays and lesbians will begin in earnest next week when the state issues petitions to organizers, so they can begin collecting the 55,087 signatures they need to force a referendum.

The Christian Civic League of Maine unveiled the plan last month, but the league was unable to proceed until it reached agreement with the Secretary of State's Office on the wording of the proposal. That process is complete.

Once the state distributes petitions, the league plans to start circulating them immediately, including at polling places during the primary election June 10, according to Michael Heath, the group's executive director. Opponents of repeal have vowed to go to the polls to try to persuade voters not to sign the petitions.

The proposal, which could appear on the ballot in November 2009, would lift the state's ban against discrimination based on sexual orientation and prevent unmarried couples from adopting children. It also would eliminate funding for the civil rights teams that the state sends into Maine schools, prevent the state from recognizing civil unions and prohibit city and town clerks from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The state already has a law on the books that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

The referendum is moving forward at a time of heightened public interest in gay rights, thanks to a ruling by the California Supreme Court on Thursday legalizing same-sex marriage there. Opponents hope to amend the California Constitution to prohibit such marriages.

Currently, Massachusetts is the only state that allows same-sex marriages, although Connecticut, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Vermont allow civil unions.

The league's referendum was in the works before the California ruling was issued, but Heath said Friday he believes it will help his cause by demonstrating that legalized marriage is the ultimate goal of gay rights activists. "There's an agenda here, and it's ultimately all about marriage," Heath said.

"California is a very long way from Maine" and the California decision has "no legal bearing on Maine," Betsy Smith of Equality Maine, the state's leading advocacy group for gays and lesbians, said Friday. Smith said that although gays and lesbians in Maine would like to marry, there are no efforts under way to seek marriage rights here.

She said the referendum is about "taking away (other) protections" that already exist. Hoping to discourage voters from signing the petitions, Equality Maine plans to send volunteers to the polls on June 10 to talk to voters. Heath refers to that as a "petition-blocking operation."

Smith says her group's "truth squads" will assure that voters are fully informed. Smith said her group sent a few volunteers to a few polling places during an anti gay-rights petition drive in 2005, but "our goal is to make this a broader effort -- more people, more polls."

State law allows opponents of a proposed referendum to make their case to voters at polling places where referendum organizers are circulating petitions, according to Melissa Packard of the Secretary of State's Office. Until recently, the state included the proposed referendum question on petitions circulated by referendum organizers.

But the Legislature has changed the law to delay drafting ballot questions until organizers submit enough valid signatures to force a vote.

What will appear on the league's petitions is the title of the proposed law and a summary of what it would do. The law itself, which is nine pages long, will appear on the back of the petitions or in a separate booklet, so voters can read it if they choose to before deciding whether to sign the petitions. To get on the ballot in November 2009, referendum organizers must submit 55,087 valid signatures to the state by Jan. 22.

Heath, who has worked on several referendum campaigns over the years, said he is "confident that we can get the signatures." Smith said Equality Maine may be able to prevent that if opponents of the referendum "talk to enough voters to tell them the truth." If supporters meet the petition deadline, the proposal will first go to the Legislature, which can enact it as written, or reject it and send it out to the voters.

The Legislature usually defeats initiated bills and lets the voters have their say, and that probably would happen in this case.

The last time Maine voters tackled gay rights at the ballot box was in 2005, after the Legislature passed a law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, housing, public accommodations, credit and education. Opponents asked voters to repeal the law, but it was upheld.