AUGUSTA – A day after California’s Supreme Court ruled that gay couples in that state can marry, an initiative to repeal Maine’s gay rights law and reaffirm a law against gay marriages moved forward Friday.

Maine election officials said they expect to give the Christian Civic League of Maine the go-ahead next week to start a petition drive aimed at sending their proposal to the Legislature next year. The league and its supporters would have to collect at least 55,087 voter signatures to do so.

With the Legislature’s likely rejection of the proposal, the question would go to Maine’s voters no sooner than November 2009.

The civic league’s proposal would repeal Maine’s law protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodation, credit and education. It bars the use of state funds by the Attorney General’s Office for its civil rights teams and civil rights programs in public schools.

The proposed law also provides that only one unmarried person or one married couple jointly may adopt a person. It would reaffirm Maine’s law that now prohibits marriage by persons of the same sex and prohibits clerks from issuing marriage licenses to persons of the same sex.

The initiative would also prohibit municipalities from licensing civil unions and deny recognition in Maine to civil unions licensed in other states.

The state has been refining the wording of the bill with the league since it first submitted its proposal in early April. With the wording finalized, the stage is set to approve the circulation of petitions next week, spokesman Don Cookson of the Secretary of State’s Office said Friday.

Michael Heath, executive director of the civic league, said his group’s effort took root well before Thursday’s California Supreme Court decision.

“On a strategic level, this goes back to 1990, when we decided that the Legislature would eventually create special rights based on sexual misbehavior,” Heath said.

Still, his group is “outraged” by the California decision and is confident Maine voters won’t let the same happen in their state.

“The people are not as confused about these things as the lawyers and judges and politicians,” Heath said.

Betsy Smith, executive director of EqualityMaine, which advocates for gays, called the California decision “a victory for all Americans who cherish fairness and opportunity.”

Smith said Friday her group is pleased that the language in the initiative “says what really is at stake here.” Smith said volunteer “truth squads” will offer advice to voters before they sign petitions circulated by Heath’s group at the polls on June 10.

“We want to make sure voters know what they’re signing,” Smith said.

Also planning to have petitions at the polls June 10 are leaders of an unrelated people’s veto campaign aimed at erasing a new state law that bolsters Maine driver’s license requirements to bring the state into closer compliance with the federal Real ID Act.

In Portland, two leaders of referendums aimed at challenging the law appeared together Friday to kick off their campaign, which will also circulate petitions on June 10.

The appearance of Kathleen McGee of Bowdoinham and Donna Bendiksen of Portland along with others showed a united front for a petition drive aimed at collecting 55,087 signatures by July 17 to put the proposal on the November ballot.

Critics described Real ID as an unwanted invasion of privacy as well as an unfunded mandate on states. They said it would do little, if anything, to boost security.

“I’m not afraid to get on an airplane with my neighbors. I’m not afraid to get on a bus or a train with my neighbors. I am, for the first time, afraid of my government,” McGee said.

Rachel Talbot Ross of the Portland chapter of the NAACP said Real ID will force Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles workers to become immigration agents charged with sorting through more than 70 classes of temporary visas and dozens of other immigration statuses.

“Even the best-trained BMV employees will make constant mistakes, and deny licenses or ID cards to people who are rightfully entitled to them,” she said.

Shenna Bellows of the Maine Civil Liberties Union said there will be no paid petition signature gatherers, but she said she’s encouraged by the “unusual alliances that are springing up against Real ID.”

A second people’s veto proposal seeks to repeal new taxes to help bolster the Dirigo Health program.