This week is the start of the California Legislature’s month-long summer recess; a time for Equality California to assess our progress seven months into the legislative session and plan a course of action for when legislators return on Aug. 15.

First the good news.

I am pleased to report that each piece of EQCA-sponsored LGBT civil rights legislation is moving forward – all having passed several key committees and some having already passed either the Assembly or Senate. From marriage equality and public accommodations non-discrimination to domestic partnership pension protection, fair campaign practices and ending discrimination in the military, EQCA’s 2005 legislative package seeks to add essential protections to the many enacted over the past six years.

As we have done each year since California’s extremely effective LGBT Legislative Caucus was created, EQCA is sponsoring legislation authored by the founding chair of the caucus: San Diego state Senator Christine Kehoe. This year’s EQCA-sponsored legislation by Senator Kehoe is especially relevant to San Diego’s LGBT community – home to the largest community of LGBT veterans and service members in the nation. Senate Joint Resolution (SJR) 11 will make it the official policy of the state of California to oppose “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and support the Military Readiness Enhancement Act (HR 1059), which is currently pending in Congress. SJR 11 will likely to be voted on in the first week legislators return from summer recess.

With a little over a decade since “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” passed, times have changed. More than 70 percent of Americans now support allowing LGBT individuals to serve openly in the military. It is hard to imagine anything more offensive than to ask those who risk their lives to protect our freedom and liberty to give up their own. Equality California was at the front lines last year, successfully pushing legislation to allow LGBT members of our state’s militia to serve openly – and we will continue to back legislation that supports our LGBT veterans in this great state.

Now the not-so-good news.

While the summer recess historically provides us the opportunity to assess and do work in the state’s districts, this summer is anything but usual. Anti-LGBT extremists have submitted three constitutional amendments to the Attorney General’s Office, each designed to repeal California’s existing domestic partnership laws and prohibit any protections for lesbian and gay couples and their families from being enacted in the future.

While we successfully beat back these dangerous measures in the Legislature, those who seek to deny our families any legal protections are likely to begin gathering signatures at the end of July or early in August to place one or more of these proposed constitutional amendments on the June 2006 ballot.

With our coalition partners around the state, including San Diego’s LGBT Community Center and the ACLU of San Diego, we have been working for many years to educate the public about our issues. And we are fortunate that so many non-LGBT organizations have joined our marriage equality coalition, including, most recently, the California NAACP and the United Farm Workers. While we continue this crucial education work, a coalition made of individuals who are affiliated with Equality California, NCLR, Bienestar, LGBT centers statewide, ACLU, Lambda Legal, NGLTF, HRC and many other organizations have formed Equality for All, a campaign committee to defeat any anti-LGBT ballot measure that may come our way. We have hired an interim campaign manager and are in the process of interviewing general consultants and permanent campaign staff. We plan to have a full campaign up and running next month, giving us an unprecedented head start in preparing to defeat an anti-LGBT constitutional amendment.

There can be no doubt that these are extremely critical times for our community. We are on the brink of passing legislation that will afford us rights and protections that we could not have envisioned being enacted just five years ago, while at the same time we are facing the most serious threat to our rights we have ever faced. If there was ever a time to get more involved with your community, that time is now.

What happens over the next year in California will be with us for decades to come. We need each and every one of you to win.

And we can win. We must win.